


Too many lives

by living_to_read



Category: Law & Order
Genre: L&O, M/M, NBC, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-02
Updated: 2011-01-02
Packaged: 2017-10-14 08:11:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 43,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/147189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/living_to_read/pseuds/living_to_read
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>after an accident Jack starts having strange dreams about sex and about a new partner he doesn't expect</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Too Many Lives:  

Nodding to the Uniform at the door, E.A.D.A. Jack McCoy paused to settle his cap securely in place and then stepped out the main door of 1, Hogan Place. It was a raw, blustery, October afternoon, still a little damp from a cold front and rain which had swept through the City area the night before. The temperature was hovering not far above freezing for the first time in the season, and Jack was glad of two things: the heavy overcoat which protected him from the cutting wind and his bike already hidden in his basement for the season. Nothing was better than a ride on his bike, that for sure, but cold was cold and his old bones were starting to resent it with a vengeance. It had been an odd day. The cases currently being tried seemed to be proceeding normally, the meeting with Adam had gone without a hitch, Abbie appeared to be busy with her first case as first chair, no arguments had erupted that he knew of, and there had been no calls from any irate defense attorneys, or Journalists, or one of the many 'we hate Jack McCoy' club that usually bothered him twice a day. He was damned if he could explain it, but despite the fact that everything was fine, somehow he had a sense of foreboding, a feeling that something was about to happen, and he wasn't going to like it one bit! Of course, he didn't like going home at 4:45 in the afternoon either. he allowed to himself with a grim smile, He was due at a charity function, having been politely ordered to appear by Adam, and he fully expected to be pecked to death by polite ladies and pompous men who were just as bored as he was. He sighed. He walked toward the nearest corner, looking for a cab, and the cars running on the street.

he thought distractedly, waving for the cab. As far as he knew there was not a reason in the world to feel so tense, but none the less...

*************************************************

There was no warning - just suddenly he was lying on his back on the sidewalk staring up into the face of a very worried Lennie Briscoe. "Wha...?" he said stupidly. "Lie still, Jack," was the cop's firm reply. "But...," and Jack began to sit up. He didn't get far, though, because his head instantly began to swim, and Lennie pushed him back down by both shoulders. "Jack," he said seriously, "you gotta lie still!" Jack carefully focused on the cop. Part of his mind wondered what the hell was Lennie doing there in Hogan place, but the possible answers were so many he lost interest in them instantly. "It's a little damp to be lying on the ground, Lennie." That got a quick smile. "Yes, Jack. I know that. But you were out cold for over a minute, and we gotta get you checked out." "I what?" Jack said, suddenly realizing that there had been a gap in his consciousness, and that someone was inside his head trying to get out with a baseball bat. "Jack!" came a startled and upset female voice, and he realized in a fuzzy fashion that he was hearing a lot of other voices approaching. he thought irrelevantly. He shifted his head just a fraction of an inch and then wished he hadn't, but he was able to see Abbie Carmicheal peering over Lennie's shoulder, hair mussed and her attractive face a study in distress. Several other members of Adam's staff stood right behind her looking equally appalled. "Take it easy, Abbie," he said, his voice unaccountably tired. "I heard you were hurt," she went on in a dismayed tone, ignoring his comment. "What happened?" "Damned if I know," he answered, his usual demeanour cracked enough to let the lurking irony out. Lennie, who was standing guard over Jack, turned and looked at Abbie and the others, nodding at the piece of brick which was lying on the sidewalk just beyond where Jack lay. "That hit Jack. Looks like it fell from a truck, hit another car and ricocheted here. A bit faster and it could have killed him, but even so it was enough to knock him out." Abbie's distress seemed to grow another notch, it that was possible. "My God, Jack..." "Take it easy, Abbie... I'm fine...," Jack began, but at that point, an emergency vehicle drew up less than twenty feet away. In an amazingly short time one EMT was kneeling beside the still prone McCoy while the other one began talking to Briscoe. Although Jack protested that he just had a headache, others were on the side of the EMT, who, after about five minutes of looking him over thoroughly, said, "You should go to the emergency room and get checked out." "Can't do it, " Jack said. He had finally managed to sit up without falling back over from dizziness. Assessing his chances of getting up without help, he considered the problem of reaching for the cab. Maybe Lennie... "Why not, Jack?" Lennie inquired gently. "Because I have to go to a damned reception tonight." Jack raised a hand to his aching head. "And, if I don't show up, Adam will have my hide." Lennie smiled. "I think he might excuse you this time." Jack looked at him from under his brows, but Lennie didn't appear to be intimidated. "How do you feel?" he asked. "Other than having father of all the headaches? Fine," Jack said pointedly. "And you've had a concussion before...," Lennie prodded him. Jack sighed, his patience lessening by the second. "A few times. I'm a biker..." "Feel good enough to stand up?" Lennie asked, putting out a hand and rising to his feet. Jack took it and began to let Lennie pull him up, but the movement was enough to trigger nausea, and he sank back down, working to suppress the need to bring up what was left of his lunch. Briscoe nodded to the EMT. "Take him in and check him out. There'll be someone waiting to take him home if he's released." "I'll ride with him," Abbie offered, her face still far from getting less worried. "Thanks, Abbie, but I'd rather have you talk with Adam and explain to him why I'm going to miss his reception... And please, be sure he understand I didn't put my head on the trajectory on purpose." Jack said tiredly, succeeding in bringing a first, shy smile on Abbie's face. ***************************************************

Since he had come in with an ambulance, Jack only had to wait around the emergency room for three hours instead of five or six. First they looked him over, then they ordered x-rays to make sure he didn't have a skull fracture, and then they simply forgot about him for what seemed like hours but was really only forty or fifty minutes. In fact, he was happy to lie still in the hospital bed with his eyes closed. Seeing two or three of everything, all of them overlapping and not quite holding still, was unsettling, to say the least; and he had learned long ago that the only solution was to close your eyes and ignore the world for a while - if you weren't in imminent danger of having someone cut your throat, that is. Besides, who wanted to stare at institutional green walls and stainless steel equipment? He could still hear muted sounds, but the nurse had pulled the canvas curtain closed to protect his privacy; so even if he had wanted to see what was going on out in the central space at the nursing desk, he couldn't have. The painful reality was that nothing was going to distract him from the pounding headache, but if he kept his eyes closed, things were marginally better. Finally, the doctor decided that he definitely needed to be admitted for the night. By then, common sense had set in and Jack did not protest. After all, he was already late for the reception anyway. A corner of his mind wondered how he was going to live that down with Briscoe, but the remainder of him was too tired to give a damn. In any case, the doctor went out to the waiting room to tell Abbie or whoever was outside to go home and Jack was taken upstairs. He allowed the hospital staff to get him to bed, knowing that he'd sleep only at the shallowest level. Having a concussion was old, familiar territory to him - he'd had some of them during his reckless youth and some as side effects of riding accidents - and while it wasn't fun, he knew the worst would be over in a few days. After that, it was just a matter of tolerating a slowly declining headache and combating the urge to sleep anywhere and any time for the next couple of weeks. ************************************************

During the night the hospital staff visited him four or five times to have him recite his name, the date, or tell them how many fingers they were holding up. It didn't make for a restful night. Around six or so, Jack slowly surfaced from a doze and began to take in information about what was around him. The sun was coming up. He knew that because the amount of light coming through his eyelids was growing. He also realized that he had a problem. Because it hurt less that way, Jack had spent the night lying as still as he possibly could without getting a cramp; but now he was going to have to either call the nurse, who would present him with the little plastic bottle for his use, or he was going to have to get up before the pressure in his plumbing became unbearable. If he used the call button, he mused, he wouldn't have to move. That would be better for his head, but the staff of most hospitals took forever to come, and he didn't have that long. Cracking one eyelid, he focused on a chair across the room. His vision had returned to only doubled rather than tripled. he thought wryly, remembering what he had done the evening before once the doors of the ambulance were closed. He rolled gingerly on his side, getting to a place where one foot was already on the floor before he tried to pick his head off the pillow. He was a little sore, from falling like a sack of beans when he was hit, no doubt. Lifting his head was painful, but not totally excruciating, and he began to think that his old skills in dealing with a concussion would stand him in good stead. A moment later he was sitting up, both feet on the floor, taking his time and allowing his body to adapt to his movements. Once his head stopped swimming, he slowly got to his feet, paused again to make sure he was stable and then began to walk to the bathroom. Doubled vision made that interesting, but by moving very slowly, and placing his feet with extreme care, he made it finally and relieved himself, feeling a lot better even if his head was imitating the inside of a bass drum in a marching band. Having finished, it occurred to him that he ought to check whatever other damage he had suffered, and he turned to the mirror over the washbasin, peering at himself and checking for bruises. Suddenly he wasn't where he had been a moment before.

********************************

There was dust everywhere, and Jack had to work to keep from sneezing as he pulled several old drop cloths aside. "What a mess," he sighed in resignation. "Jack? You're up there?" The voice echoed up the stairs that led from the attic down to the rest of the house. "Lennie, God Bless you. I was sure you weren't going to make it," Jack said, delighted, as his friend's head became visible at the top of the stairs. "I figured something would come up." "You wound me, Jack. You thought I'd forget my promise to help you go through all this crap?" "I'm flattered that you showed up. There's no man loved more than the one who shows up to help a friend go through an attic." Lennie shot him a glance he couldn't understand and then smiled easily. "Hey, it's me; can you imagine me giving up a chance to look at antiques?" He looked eager and Jack thought of all the antiques' digging they'd been to and how his friend couldn't drive past a yard sale without stopping. They'd even been late for another old college friend's wedding once because of a particularly interesting estate sale. Jack still had the cut glass decanter he'd picked up for two dollars that time. "Where do we start?" "At the beginning and go on 'til we reach the end and stop. Of course, I always have trouble with the stopping part." Chuckling, they set to work. A distant relative had died and left Jack an old Victorian house, and he wasn't sure what he was going to do with it. As foolish as it was, he rather liked the idea of fixing up the 120-year-old beauty. If only he had someone with whom to share the work, the fun, and the house, he'd be certain that fixing it up was a good idea. "Wow!" Lennie exclaimed some time later. Jack turned to see him looking at a box that was packed with tissue. "Did your great-aunt have any idea of what she had up here?" "Probably not. What did you...?" His question was answered as Lennie held up a black box. "Russian lacquer ware, Jack, the really good stuff." He looked at the box again, as Jack moved over to join him. "My God. This one's is very old..." They dug curiously through the box, uncovering several more lacquer boxes. And then Jack, who had been wrapping the boxes back up, heard a gasp from behind him. He whirled on his haunches, and saw Lennie looking at something flat with an expression of awe on his face. "17th Century, at least," he murmured, and Jack saw the dull gleam of silver as those long hands turned the object over. "St. Basil, St. Catherine, and St. Nicholas...*Look* at it, Jack." It was an icon, the bodies of the saints covered in tarnished hammered silver with only their faces showing. While Jack wasn't as knowledgeable about art as his old friend was, he knew beauty when he saw it and this piece was beautiful. "What a pity it's been locked up here for so long," he said, almost wistfully. "Just like this house..." "Waiting for us to discover it," Lennie's familiar voice murmured. He sounded overwhelmed by the beauty of the discovery, and that pleased Jack more than the discovery itself. "When I was a boy, I used to think that my Aunt had treasure chests locked up here. I guess I was right." They uncovered three more icons, one of them a startlingly beautiful Madonna that they both stared at in silence for a long time. "I might have been more religious," Lennie's said, "if I'd grown up with this kind of art around me." "I can see you like that," Jack said smiling. "In a Russian monastery, painting one of these." "Ha! My eye for beauty is far better than my artistic talent." Jack smiled and reached for the icon, intending to wrap it up again. "I'll want to bring this box downstairs," he began, shifting to make a grab for more tissue paper. Later, he assumed that if it hadn't been for the beers he'd drunk, nothing would have happened. As it was, he lost his balance and ended up half-sprawled across Lennie. His oldest, closest friend, the roommate he'd lived with all through college, the one person he'd never lost touch with, the friend who was always there for him... As Jack laughed and tried to sit up again, he felt those strong arms close around him for just a moment, as, for one brief second, a cheek rested against his head, and a pair of lips touched his temple. And then Lennie was pulling away, his face flushed and a look of distress contorting those expressive features. For some reason that look tore at Jack's heart, and the roar of blood in his ears and the pounding of his heart increased as he sat up. "Jack... I'm sorry... I never meant... I didn't want to... I'll just... you don't have to..." Lennie stuttered. "How long have you known?" Jack asked quietly, pleased to note that his voice neither shook, nor sounded angry. The question wasn't all that important, but he wanted to stop that painful litany of broken sentences. "Since I was twelve," was Lennie's flat reply. "Unless you're asking about my feelings for you, which I figured out a week into our freshman year." He looked down at his hands. "It's all right, J.J." The old nickname from their college' days made Jack's vision blur. "I'll go now. You don't have to try to forgive me." The leaden, weary tone made the tears spill gently onto Jack's cheeks. He watched through the haze before his eyes as Lennie paused in getting to his feet to put the icon carefully into its box. Jack felt frozen, unable to believe that his best friend was really going to walk away. Away from this moment, this house, and his life... "Lennie, Wait!" he said. And then: "Please?" At first he was sure he hadn't been heard, and then that tall form paused right in front of the stairs. "Please, don't go; don't leave me alone," Jack said, meaning it as he'd never meant anything in his life. It was only when Lennie turned back that Jack knew his voice had conveyed everything he wanted it to. As Jack scrambled to his feet and stepped around boxes, remembering suddenly that he'd always loved and envied the grace with which his friend did everything, he saw those features, more familiar to him than even his own, begin to glow with a look of wonder. "You... you're not..." Jack did the only thing he could think of doing to forestall another long string of confused words; he stood right in front of Lennie, leaned up and kissed him. It was supposed to be a gentle brush of his lips, but he hadn't counted on those large hands closing around his arms and pulling him against that broad chest. He hadn't counted on hearing that moan deep in Lennie's throat, and the skillful way those full lips twisted against his own. He opened his mouth without a second thought, and a moan of his own built up as a warm, soft tongue slipped between his lips and brushed against his own tongue. Before Jack could do more that begin to return the kiss, Lennie's arms wrapped around him and pulled him even closer, while a denim-covered bulge rubbed against him. It was only then that Jack realized that he was hard, painfully, frustratingly, hard. He ground his hips against the other man, who pulled away from Jack's mouth. "I'm sorry... it's just that I've thought about us being like this for 'so' long. I'm coming on too strong, it's just that... Oh God, Jack," he moaned as Jack's arms slid around his waist. "I used to jerk off while I watched you sleep. You're so handsome and you're so unconscious of how you affect other people." He paused, a blush stealing across his face. "I used to draw pictures of you in college... hell, I still draw pictures of you." "Thirty years," Jack murmured. "Thirty-two, and seven months," Lennie interrupted. "We've been standing here for maybe one minute and I already want you so badly that I can't stand it. How could I be so blind and leave you alone for thirty-two years?" "And seven months." That mouth was back, this time roaming over Jack's neck. "Sometimes it's not so bad," he paused again to do something incredible to the hollow of Jack's throat. "Sometimes I've gone for a few hours without thinking of you." "Ohhh..." "I compare every man I meet with you." Another pause while that tongue traced Jack's ear. "Ahhhh..." "Every lover I have fails to live up to you..." Jack was stunned by the furious wave of jealousy that washed over him. He growled deep in his throat and reached up to knot his fingers in that dark hair. "No more lovers," he commanded and pulled Lennie's face down until their lips met. This time he initiated the kiss, and he was amazed at how naturally his hands slid down to cup the other's ass and pull him close. "No more girlfriends, then." "God, no," Jack replied. "Ohhh...I can't stand it... please..." "Tell me what... you want," came Lennie's panting reply. "Anything... Anything... everything... just touch me..." The words had hardly left his mouth before his back was flat against a wall. His belt was undone by hands that were obviously accustomed to that activity and then a quick tug on his jeans unbuttoned his fly. He heard a soft gasp, almost a verbal shiver, as one of those hands slid down inside his briefs to glide over his leaking cock. And then his ears heard nothing but his own moaning, interspersed with little breathless pleas for more of this. He locked his knees as best as he could, and gave himself over to the touch of that hand. He knew those hands so well; he'd seen them gripping a tennis racket with nervous tension during a match, cradling a snifter of brandy on any number of nights spent talking about anything and everything, clinging to a hawser on a windy day when they shouldn't have been out on the Bay, soaping down those strong arms in a gym shower room... Jack cried out and his hips bucked as he came into that hand. It was too much, too sudden... He was flying so high he feared the fall that was going to follow. He looked around, trying to focus onto something solid before collapsing into Lennie's arms, and...

*********************************

...suddenly he was grasping the sink of the hospital bathroom to keep himself from falling, his hospital gown as drenched with sweat as though he had indeed been out in a downpour. He lifted a shaking hand to the padded bandage the doctors had put over the spot where the brick had knocked him. he thought grimly, turning and moving with infinite care. Once he was stretched out in bed again, he lay there, conscious of the hormones generated by the scene still rioting through his body. he thought. It didn't help much, though. He remembered the taste of the beer he had drunk, the half-serious, half-joking conversation with Lennie, his college room mate, and architect, and antiques' hunter, and his best friend from practically always. He also remembered, in detail, that he was still a lawyer, but not a New York District attorney. He had his own firm in a small town in Maine, and he was freshly divorced again and his daughter was living in Los Angeles writing scripts for television, and he talked to her twice a week, and he had a grandson named after him. As his breathing began to smooth out, Jack started wondering whether the concussion had anything to do with what had just happened. The problem was that he had been concussed at least a half dozen times and he'd never had such intense hallucinations before. Doubled vision, yes, but hallucinations? Definitely not. he thought. For just a moment he let himself dwell on the taste and feel of Lennie's lips, the way his body had felt pressed against his. The way his hand felt on his cock. He'd better forget about that or he was never going to be able to face Lennie Briscoe again!


	2. Chapter 2

Because his nausea had calmed down, he was familiar with the symptoms of concussion, and he knew what to do to manage the way he was feeling, the doctor agreed to release him late in the morning.

He spent most of the day drowsing, taking the pain killers for the headache and keeping careful track of his symptoms. Nothing showed up in the pupils of his eyes, however; his nausea continued to diminish, and while the headache was still a nine on a scale of ten, it was bearable. At least he had permission from himself to lie still and do nothing for once. He vaguely considered calling his daughter, knowing that she would have a fit when she found out he'd been hurt; but he tried not encourage her to mother him too much: she didn't need to feel like she should do that and he didn't need the aggravation.

Sometime in the early evening, just as he was beginning to wonder about some dinner and trying to decide whether there was anything as simple as soup in his cupboard, the doorbell rang. Wincing and moving more slowly than he would have liked to, he got up from the recliner that he'd had stretched out full-length and answered the door. There on his doorstep stood Lennie Briscoe.

Jack was floored. He gaped at him, knowing he looked like a fool, but he couldn't do anything else. It was his hallucination come true - and yet, it wasn't.  
Seeing his shocked expression, Lennie's face mirrored his concern. "Jack," he said worriedly, "are you OK?"  
"Uh...no, I am not," he finally got out.  
"Are you feeling worse? Do I need to take you back to the hospital?" Lennie asked seriously.  
Getting himself under a little better control and consciously shoving the memory of the feel of his body down into his subconscious, Jack responded, "Not unless you plan to knock me out before you do it."  
"Ah... well. No, I hadn't planned to do that," Lennie muttered, trying to keep his smile from growing too smug, since he was not sure whether Jack intended to be funny or not.  
Jack considered him. How the heck was he going to get rid of him before he did something totally embarrassing or unmentionably stupid?   
"What do you have, Lennie?" he finally asked, looking down at the bag in his left hand.  
"Oh! Well.... We thought that maybe you were ready to eat something about now. I mean, the time I was concussed, my stomach was really upset for about twenty-four hours, but we thought...."  
"'We' being?"  
"Well," and he smiled again, "the usual suspects, I guess. Abbie and your secretary and...."  
"You?"  
"Yeah, of course." Lennie's warm smile was killing him, but he had to behave as normally as possible.  
"And it's...?" he prompted.  
"Hot soup and fresh bread and some fruit. Stuff that isn't likely to bother your stomach."  
Jack nodded. Then he turned and waved at the telephone table near the door.   
"That's a telephone, Lennie. You know, the thing you pick up and dial and they bring the food to your door?"  
"Yes, Jack," Lennie answered, showing no intention to be bothered by his attitude. "And that's what I did. Only you didn't have to order it." He smiled again and handed him the bag. "I hope it tastes good, and if you promise to behave and give it a try, I'll let you alone instead of forcing my way in and arm-wresting you until you're well fed and safely tucked to bed."  
"Abbie made you promise to do that, right?"   
"You betcha... She's going to kill me if I don't see to it. And she's going to kill you because you didn't call her to bring you home."  
"Nonsense. She had two meetings this morning." Jack retorted, acting like the tough 'boss' he was supposed to be. Then, like an afterthought he added meekly "Is she really mad?"  
"I don't think so. You scared the hell out of her yesterday, and she's still a bit shaken. Call her and tell her you're OK."  
Jack nodded.  
"And call me. For anything. I know what it's like dealing with a concussion."  
"Ok, Lennie. I'll call if there are problems."  
"You promise?"  
"Yeah. I do. And thank you"  
"Good. I leave you to your supper. Try to catch some sleep, Ok? See you tomorrow," and he walked down the steps.

Jack stood in the doorway until Lennie had left, then closed the door and headed to the kitchen. Warming up the soup would be easy, and the odor of freshly baked bread was actually making his mouth water. If only he could ignore the tumult in his mind, he'd be in great shape! He started washing his hands absent-mindedly, wondering how much of what was going on inside of his head was showing on the outside, and suddenly, he was someplace else...

*****************

The two-story, reinforced concrete-and-glass house was shaped like a semicircle and rested upon a cleared lesser peak of the mountain. A redwood deck swept around the entire front curve of the house and extended out to the edge of a sheer cliff of solid rock. Jack placed a card key into a slot at the entrance, and the gate creaked open. He drove up the driveway and parked behind the house adjacent to a four-car garage.   
"Good God!" Lennie stepped out of the car and marveled at the sight.   
"Welcome to Cliff House." Jack grinned enjoying the other man's astonishment. "Who does this palace belong to?" asked Lennie, entranced.   
"The wife of a big Hollywood producer who was murdered about two years ago." Jack led the way down to a side entrance. "Everybody thought she did it, and my boss tried to put the squeeze on us--probably because the D.A. was so anxious to pin in on someone easy. The victim's business partner did a frame job on the poor woman that you wouldn't believe, but I didn't buy it. Eventually, I stumbled over the evidence for the D.A. to go after the business partner. I ended up having an affair with her, but she wanted to 'keep' me." He smiled warmly. "Now, she's just a great friend who'll do anything for me." Jack fetched Lennie' s bag from the trunk and led him down to the side entrance. Using the same card key, he gained entrance to the kitchen.

Jack led Lennie into the semicircular living room, which rose through the second level. Several huge glass panels comprised a curved wall and offered a view of Los Angeles Lennie had only seen in movies. To the left of the living room there was a formal dining area, which looked out over the pool in back. Jack pointed toward a bedroom at the far end, adjacent to the front deck. "That's your bedroom. Knowing Linda, it's probably stocked with robes and towels and all kinds of fancy stuff. It has its own bathroom." He pointed at another room next to the bedroom. "That's the entertainment room, which is loaded with state-of-the-art sound and video equipment. It has every video, CD and cassette tape ever made, I swear." Lennie looked up the stairway and saw a bedroom directly over the one on the first level.

"Upstairs is the master bedroom and another guest bedroom." Jack pointed matter of factly. "Also has a study and a gym."   
Lennie looked at the redwood deck and walked toward the sliding glass door. "I'll show you that later. Linda's got an elaborate security system, so we have to disarm it before we can go out on the deck or to the pool. Why don't you clean up while I take care of a little business, okay?"

Jack walked up the stairs and made a telephone call to his drinking buddy and Internal Affairs source, Lieutenant Bernard Lipranzer. He dialed Lipranzer's pager and gave Linda's number for the callback, flagging the message 'urgent'. He waited for the call from some phone booth; it came in less than three minutes.

"Hey, you ugly Son of a bitch!" greeted Lipranzer. "Wanna meet me tonight at the Palace? Booze on me tonight."   
"Naw, can't make it, Lip," said Jack, wishing he could. He needed a drunken night out on the town with someone crazy like Lip. "I got troubles, man... big troubles."   
"Uh oh. How big?"   
"Think about Montana and double it..."  
"That bad?"  
"Yeah! I've got a reason to think that the Horny Satyr's killer is a cop, and I think our friend Borlan is involved."   
"You kidding?" Lipranzer laughed.   
"Wish I was. I need to set surveillance on an apartment south of downtown and a van with a video camera."   
"Oh, shit."   
"Come on, Lip," said Jack, sensing a turn down. "Borlan's flying higher than a kite now. He's vulnerable to making a mistake. It could be all you guys need to nail him."   
"Things aren't the same now, Jack. Borlan's got everyone spooked. They did a witch hunt and got rid of a lot of guys, Jack. Most everyone who'd worked on him. I still don't know how they missed me, but I'm not gonna push my luck by going out on a limb for you."   
"Who'll know?" Jack was feeling desperate. "Just you and me . . . and the van man won't have to know anything. All he has to do is work the video camera and give you the footage. Doesn't some rookie owe you a favor? I'll go with you to the D.A. Once it's in their hands, you can go back to being invisible."   
"Jack, my source at the FBI confirms that Borlan's tied to the Mafia like we thought. He has lots of friends in high places. They think he's stashing away explosives, but they don't know where. The guy points a finger at you, you're history, Jack. He's one bad motherfucker."   
"Explosives? What the hell for?"   
"That's all my FBI source will tell me, other than it's big and they're getting nowhere."   
"The more reason to do this then, Lip. He's got to be stopped, and I have his soft underbelly in my hands right now. How about it?" Lipranzer was silent.   
"Come on, man. Borlan will end up tearing the L.A.P.D. to pieces. Someone has to stop him, for God's sake."   
"Okay... but you owe me, man. You owe me one hell of a big one."   
"You got it, Lip. Thanks." Jack hung up and quickly dialed the number of the station. It was vital they kept thinking he still was on a wild goose chase, and not with both hands on the only witness that Borlan's lackeys hadn't neutralized, yet. He talked briefly with the "wonder boy" of the week, collected the news, reported his lack of progress in his investigation and added the right amount of rubbish and smoke to screen his movements. He hung up sure nobody would care to give a damn about what he was really doing. That was the perk of being the loose cannon of the precinct: nobody took him seriously nowadays and with the gambit he was playing, that suited him just fine.

While Jack was on the telephone, Lennie had shaved, showered and slipped into a white bathrobe. As he poured himself a club soda at the bar, Jack came down the stairs, shaking his head forlornly.   
"What's wrong?" asked Lennie, mixing another drink. Jack absently took it. "The hair and blood samples are so clean they stink. Guess somebody is making a hell of a job tampering with the evidence."

Jack went into the living room and sat on an ottoman. Lennie followed. "We're alone. Our only chance is to trap him now. Or should I say them?" He looked up at Lennie thoughtfully. "Don't let anyone in this house, you understand?" Lennie nodded.   
"I can't see how anyone would know you're here, but, just in case, all you have to do is hide and wait for help to arrive. Like I said, this place is hooked up to a fool-proof security system, so don't try to go outside, not even on to the deck. You'll set it off and have a hell of a time explaining to the local police why you're here." He gulped down the drink and rushed toward the kitchen. "I'll be back in about two or three hours."   
"Where are you going?" Lennie felt panicky.   
"To set up a trap." Jack waved and strode toward the kitchen exit.  
"Just be calm and enjoy yourself. You'll be all right." He pressed an interrupt button to allow him to get outside without setting off the alarm. As Lennie watched, Jack rushed to the rented car and sped down the road, feeling a strange tugging sensation in his stomach. He was leaving the only witness still alive all alone and he wasn't liking it a bit. A voice in his mind told him that was just part of the problem, but he decided to ignore it for the time being.

*************

By the time Jack had returned it was almost midnight. He was concerned that Lennie might have panicked and made a call... or worse. If he had, all the efforts made to keep him alive were going to go down the drain, along with Jack's career and, probably, life.

He found Lennie asleep on a couch in the darkened living room.   
"Lennie?" Lennie opened his eyes and jumped up to a sitting position. "Huh?" He looked around wildly.   
"Easy," soothed Jack. "It's only me."   
He turned on a lamp nearby. "Oh, fuck, I was dreaming about being chased by that creep." He rubbed his eyes, looking at Jack. "Did you eat?" "Yeah, I had a sandwich a couple of hours ago." He looked at his watch.   
"Lord, how long were you gone?"   
"About four hours," Jack said, pouring himself a brandy at the bar.   
"You feel like drinking with me?" Lennie yawned. "Nope. Still trying to stay dry."   
" A.A.?"  
" Yeah. I'm Lennie Briscoe and I'm an alcoholic..."

Jack smiled, and came to sit in an overstuffed chair across from the older man. It was obvious that he was still wired and needed to mellow. "So?" Lennie inquired   
"So what?"   
"How did it go?"   
Jack shrugged. "We have it in the bag," he lied. Nothing had changed in those few hours. The Horny Satyr's killer was still a cop and was still a valuable pawn in Borlan's plans, whatever they were. So far to keep his cover, the organization had caused two more deaths and done some serious tampering with the evidence, so the only ways to get him were either to make him a dangerous nuisance for Borlan , or to break the net around him. Chances were better he would win the next lottery, but his witness didn't need to know that, so Jack didn't provide any details, and Lennie realized that he should leave the subject alone.

"After this brandy, I'm going to have a nice hot shower and go to bed." Jack glanced at Lennie, who smiled coyly. "In separate bedrooms," he added. Lennie snapped his fingers in an "Oh damn" gesture, then laughed. Jack was beginning to feel less self-conscious about Lennie's attraction, and actually managed a smile. He studied the other man.   
"I can't get over how relaxed you are all of a sudden. Hell, I thought you were going to have a nervous breakdown just a few minutes ago."   
"I feel at home here. It's nice... and you're here now."   
OK, that was a bit too much. Jack quickly changed the subject.  
"Do you have a family?"   
"Yeah. Two ex wives - who I thank everyday in my prayers for having pushed me in the arms of my first man - one daughter and one son who never cared too much about me even when I was straight."   
"Do they know?" asked Jack, becoming relaxed himself.   
"Yeah. You can bet they know. That's why my grandson thinks his grandpa's dead"  
"Ouch... Nice family."  
"No shit. You?"  
"Widower. No kids."   
Lennie grimaced as he was reminded of Jack's heterosexuality.   
"She died in a car accident 9 years ago. Had she not died, we'd probably still be married to each other... and miserable. She loved me but hated my job viscerally. Knowing what I know now, she was right and I was stupid beyond redemption."  
"No one in your life, now?"  
"No. Linda was the last one. 47 days from beginning to end. The longest relationship I had since my wife died. I wish it had worked better..."  
"Do you still love her?"  
"NO. And that's the point. I wish it had worked but I know I didn't and don't love her enough to try."  
"Then why wishing?"  
"Because of the loneliness." Jack had never before admitted his loneliness to anyone, and the statement felt strange coming from his mouth. "Loneliness at our age can kill faster than a heart attack. I live alone, eat microwaveable junk and hate every minute of it. I'm a workaholic, probably an alcoholic, too. I wake up alone in the morning and go to bed alone in the evening. And I'm so dog tired of it that sometimes I ask myself why I haven't eaten my gun yet." His own frankness amazed him. Why on earth was he telling this to someone he just met.  
"What about you?" he asked, needing to move the focus of the conversations as far away from himself as humanly possible.

" More or less the same. After I came out every night was a feast. I was so eager I tried everything, twice. A year later I was alcoholic, on the verge of drug addiction and tired beyond belief of one night stands. So I tried a real, healthy relationship. Then I tried again, and again, and again. One looser after another. The last one loved two things in life: cocaine and to beat me senseless. The first two times I forgave him. The third I sent him to the hospital with nose, right cheek-bone and a couple of ribs broken. Never heard from him since."

Jack became enchanted with Lennie's sincerity. It was refreshing.  
"After that fiasco I pretty much decided the party was over and resigned myself to living alone. Celibacy sounded like a good solution at the time but it didn't work in the long run. There's a limit on the number of addictions you can try to master at the same time and I hit it hard. I felt so sex starved that I was crawling up the walls, so I started cruising again. And on my first night out I stumbled into a remake of the St. Valentine's massacre."   
"That was your first night out?"  
"Yeah. Talk about bad timing."  
"I thought you were a regular client."  
"Of that hole? Do I look like the regular client of a place named the Horny Satyr?"   
"How the hell would I know? For all I know about you, you could be into that kind of kink."

Lennie laughed, a deep warm laugh that Jack found catchy "Orgies? Sorry to disappoint you, detective, but what you have here is just an old man into plain vanilla who was looking for a good lay. And believe me, at my age it's not that easy."  
"That's hard to believe. You're a good-looking man, Lennie. You shouldn't have any trouble finding what you want."   
Lennie chuckled bitterly. "If only I could be turned on easily. Unluckily I'm stuck with my type, which usually turns out to be married... or drunk or a crazy son of bitch with a penchant for using his fists as a foreplay. The ones who aren't fucked-up usually prefer women... or any other guy besides me."   
"What's your type?"   
Lennie smiled wistfully. "Look in the mirror."   
For the first time, Jack allowed himself to feel flattered and then, to his own surprise, he blushed.  
"Why?" he asked.  
"Why what?"  
"Why on earth somebody would want a scarecrow like me as 'his type'?"  
Lennie laughed "A scarecrow? Man, you've got a lot of work to do on your self-esteem. If only you knew just how many men would jump at a chance to have a silver fox like you..."  
"Silver fox?" Lennie was amused by the exaggerated frown on Jack's face.  
"Mature, grayish hair, in good shape, alpha-male and no-nonsense attitude, handsome in a rough and seasoned kind of way. And with that charming hawkish profile of yours... It makes me want to snuggle up next to you like a puppy." His embarrassment finally overwhelmed his curiosity. Time to get out of here before this went any further. "I think we'd better turn in. Busy day tomorrow. I'm going to take a shower."   
"I'll just sit here and watch the lights... and try to figure out what to do with my life if you manage to keep me alive until this mess is over."  
"Hey... You're still alive so far..."  
" Yeah. Did I thank you for that?"  
" Dunno. Maybe. Maybe not. I usually don't take notice of that kind of details while I'm trying to keep my witnesses alive."   
Jack got up and walked upstairs to the master bedroom. Lennie waited till he reached the top of the stairs. "Jack." He called.  
"What?"  
"Thank you."  
"You're welcome."

Jack undressed and headed toward the bathroom. He worked a bit on the taps of the shower and stepped in, enjoying the feel of the warm, cascading water over his skin. Lost in his own thoughts he didn't notice the shadow approaching the shower's stall until he turned to reach the soap and spotted Lennie's silhouette behind the glass door.   
Jack was astonished, but absently continued lathering his thick chest hair with soap, while Lennie shed his robe, letting it drop to the floor, and opened the glass door.   
"No, Lennie." He admonished, sternly.  
Lennie's eyes lovingly poured over the lean, sinewy, hairy body as water shot past him onto the floor. He extended a shaky hand to touch Jack's chest.   
"Don't make me hurt you, Lennie. Back off," warned Jack.   
"I can't help it, Jack," Lennie said softly, his voice quavering as his body shuddered.   
"Get the hell out!" yelled Jack, pushing Lennie back and shutting the door. In an exceptional reaction of anger and passion, Lennie pulled the door back open, ripping the inside handle out of Jack's hands. As Jack massaged his smarting hand, he stood, unable-perhaps unwilling-to move, staring into Lennie's alien-looking eyes.   
"What in the hell are you doing?" asked Jack breathlessly.  
"I've seen too many corpses these last days. I keep seeing them every time I close my eyes. I... I just want to feel alive again ..." said Lennie, his voice fragile with passion and fear. " And not alone. Please, Jack!"

The need in his voice cut through Jack's defenses. 'Not alone' was something he understood. All the little reactions of this day started to add up; he started to think that maybe... He didn't even realize it when he tentatively nodded, inviting Lennie in.  
Lennie stepped under the shower spray and sucked steamy air into his lungs. As the hot spray hit his body, his hand touched Jack's chest, causing the man to quake and drop the bar of soap. Lennie gently wrapped his arms around Jack, pulling him close, and allowed his body to glide down Jack's torso until the rigid, pulsing cock came into view. Jack cried out, staring at his unaided erection in utter amazement.   
Lennie took Jack's cock into his mouth. At the touch of his lips it jumped and Jack moaned. Lennie began working his tongue tentatively and Jack's moaning increased. He placed his hands on both sides of Lennie's head and, entranced, started to set the rhythm.   
A sense of elation pervaded Lennie's body, from the tip of his toes to the roots of his hair, feeling Jack's willing surrender to his ministrations. He looked up once and liked what he saw. Jack's masculine face was expressing ecstasy, eyes unfocused, clenched teeth, as he let out soft moans and grunts.

Jack stared in wonder as his cock slipped smoothly in and out of Lennie's mouth. He felt his toes curl and sensed a wonderfully warm churning in his groin. As the point of ecstasy reached him, he felt weightless and seemed to float. He grunted his message to Lennie, who wedged the bloated penis deep within his throat. His throbs began at the base of his cock and rippled up to his cock head, engaging Lennie's tongue, which fluttered the base, releasing throb after throb, keeping the movement alive.

His body shook violently as he slowly glided down the slick tiles, as if his legs were unable to support his weight. As the water sprayed over them, Jack sat on the shower floor with glazed, unbelieving eyes. Lennie leaned back against the other wall and began touching himself, coming after only a few strokes. He watched as his own semen swirled around and around in the drain, finally slipping through the holes.

Coming back to his senses, Lennie watched Jack closely, ready to bolt if the detective had some sort of belated reaction to the abuse and decided rightly to beat him into a bloody pulp. Instead Jack reached out a hand, grabbed Lennie' s arm and forced him to sit with him on the floor.   
"What have you done to me?" he asked, panting and Lennie let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. There was no anger in Jack's voice, just wonder. He looked flushed and dazed, but his eyes were glowing.  
"Last time I checked, it was called a Blow Job." Lennie answered, finally allowing himself to relax.  
"Naw... I had some blow jobs in my life but they weren't like this". Jack felt elated.  
"How was this?"  
"Mind blowing. Never felt so good in ages..."  
Minutes later they helped each other to their feet and stepped out of the shower. "I'm afraid you just opened Pandora's box" Jack stated, half laughing, pointing at his cock, already at half mast and growing again quickly. He wondered if it was possible to get drunk on sex and decided that in the name of science he had to investigate the matter some more.

****  
The smell of burnt soup caught his nostrils and Jack gave a start as if he'd been hit right between his eyes. The water was still running over his hands and had made a mess of his shirt and trousers. And the soup was wasted. The signs were clear. He had blanked out for some time, but he couldn't tell if it had been seconds or hours. The only thing he could tell for sure was that he felt like he'd lived a whole day of a totally different life.  
he muttered, his heart accelerating, thousands of thoughts spinning in his brain, 

He began shaking uncontrollably. Restraining the urge to bang his head against the cupboard, he got hold of himself and waited several minutes for the shakes to subside. Once that happened, he walked a bit erratically away from the kitchen, and wound up spread-eagled on the bed.

He laid there for a long while, trying desperately not to think about what had happened in his "hallucination". But he couldn't help rerunning the memory, and his body kept responding so emphatically. Lennie Briscoe again. For the second time in less than a day he had seen himself having sex with Lennie Briscoe, and he remembered every single detail of it to the point he felt like he was affected by some sort of post coital lassitude. And that, as surprising as it was, was nothing compared to the fact that he remembered all the details of the hallucination like they were part of his life. He remembered how he had felt when his wife had died, where he lived in L.A.; where he used to go running every morning and where was the gym, and the laundry. He remembered the phone number of Bern Lipranzer, and the code to enter into Linda's house. He knew how he managed to find Lennie Briscoe after the multiple homicide at the Horny Satyr. In a corner of his mind there was even the certainty that something had already changed between him and Lennie. He knew he was already thinking whether he would have mastered the courage necessary to reciprocate, and that the other man was no more just a witness and a key to get rid of Borlan once and for all. 

He reached for the phone near his bed and dialed a number he was sure he knew by heart. He waited, his hands shaking for the tension.   


Of course nobody answered. He sighed.His stomach started to protest the earlier abandonment of dinner, so he dragged himself out of bed and back to the kitchen. The soup was ruined, but the bread and fruit Lennie had brought looked like a decent option. Lennie. He shook his head, trying not to go there. He finished the simple meal and headed back to bed. He fell asleep still wondering why, in all his "hallucinations", he kept falling for Briscoe as if it was the most natural thing in the world and why he didn't feel as shocked as he should have.


	3. Chapter 3

It was just sex and it was sweaty, and rough, and frenzied.   
It was the sex you have when you can't tell where one person begins and the other ends. There was breathing, gasping, groaning and no words. No coherent words, but so much was said. It was the sex they had to have. It was the tough, serious sex of people denied too long. It was bruising and wet and they made a slapping noise as their bodies came together.

When they changed positions, they became weightless, spinning over and under the other, well balanced and of the same thought. More. Whatever it was, they wanted more of it.

They came, not together, but not caring. Fingers gouging into flesh, pressing and kneading and pulling their bits closer and rubbing them harder and pushing themselves to more sensation. Hair grasped in needy fists and pulled, tongues swapping spit and tasting sweat. And when their eyes finally opened and they saw the havoc wreaked on their bodies, two feral smiles mashed together for another round. It was sex and it was wonderful.

With throats raw from sucking in air and the ache of strained muscles and rubbed raw flesh and salt stinging scratches, they finally rested. They were momentarily sated, defeated, by the deficiencies of the flesh, but with minds still running on full power.

It was like music. A rhythm that pressed into the groin, and made a home there, refusing to leave until driven out by force. The force of hands, cocks, driving hard into that rhythm, claiming it and using it. But some vestige of that music remained even after, in the sweet nothingness of the afterglow, in Jack's fingertips lightly brushing over the head that rested on his belly, rising and falling with his breaths, eyes closed, lips curled in a sated smile. He kept stroking lazily and lovingly the face and the jaw of his lover. He felt his fingers slipping across his lips and being sucked in and tongued with a slow tired tongue.

It would have been enough for most people, but there was power here. The need long denied created its own irresistible force.

Lennie rolled over and slipped his mouth over Jack's nipple. His hand found Jack's cock, again, and with a gasp they were off, again. The music in their souls urged them to excess, and with the desperation that true need brings the sex was, again, spectacular.

It ended in tears. Not weeping or sobbing or in pain. There was exhaustion sure, but it was the empty feeling of having nothing left to give, no room to take more. Whatever they had done, their actions and intent had proved sufficient. They both needed those tears.

In the quiet stillness of the old Victorian house, Jack turned a sweaty cheek to his pillow. He could see the stars through the window. He could feel a warm hand on his hip, and an equally damp face pressed close to his back. He closed his eyes, and his breathing slowed, steadied. Lennie's hand slipped over his waist and pulled him closer.  
"Love you, Jack"   
"Love you too, Lennie." They both fell asleep, smiling.   
************

And Jack woke up.

He thought, as his hand wandered on his own volition trough the other side of the bed, searching for someone who wasn't there, Absurd or not, however, he was lying in bed with a very insistent erection. A glance at the time told him that it was the middle of the night and that he didn't have to get up. Vaguely he wondered why his mind kept playing those tricks to him, but the urgent throbbing of his cock easily leaded him to distraction.

He allowed himself the luxury of time. As he began to run his hands slowly over his pyjama top, he tried to re-capture the flavour of the dream. He moaned softly as his fingers glided over his tight nipples, trying to imagine Lennie's fingers touching him there. His mind grew more focused on the dream, as he let his hand slid beneath the waistband of his underwear and take hold of his cock.

He got caught up in the re-run, in the playfulness of sex that was half wrestling, with both participants fighting for dominance and pleasure, giving and taking without the real need to find a winner. He was so close now, so close to the edge, as one hand tightened on his cock and the other clutched at a fistful of sheet, and his body writhed on the bed. He imagined the strength of the firm, hot body of Lennie pressed against him, and it felt so natural he didn't waste any time musing about the fact it was a man's body he was fantasizing about. He couldn't care less. When he came, he came hard, arching off the bed into his own hand and yelling harshly as he rode out the pleasure he had become.

He lay on the bed for a long time as he came down and his breathing and heart rate returned to normal. Finally, as his body cooled he became aware that his boxers were soaked, he got out of bed and headed for the bathroom, getting rid of pyjamas and underwear along the way. He stepped inside the cubicle to enjoy the warm spray.

"Ohhhh," he breathed as that deluge caressed him. The water felt wonderful against his skin. He turned so that the spray hit his chest, stimulating sensitive nipples, before it trickled deliciously down to his groin, rippling through the grey-black curls there and running off the sides of his cock. He found he was repositioning his legs to enjoy even more the sensation of the hot water cascading down his skin. The heat was filling him now, moving around him in steamy swirls which made up the embracing arms of a ghost lover.

He got some soap in his hands from the wall dispenser, rubbed them together to start up a warm lather, and then covered his chest, his arms, his shoulders, his head, neck and face in the creamy white suds. He stepped into the spray and felt the cleansing rinse tumble over him. The water seemed to pelt him even harder, and the steam was moving all around him, into and out of his lungs, lightly caressing him and yet enfolding him in a white shroud of privacy. More soap, and he was now eagerly, urgently dropping his hands to his cock, enjoying the feel of himself in his own hands, imagining they were Lennie's hands on him. The Lennie from his other life, the one who loved him and didn't miss an opportunity to show him how much since that moment on the attic of his house in Maine.

"Ohhh, yes," he said, just for his own ears, almost not recognizing his own voice. His felt light headed to the point he had to steady himself with his hands on the shower wall, waiting a long, long minute until the world stopped spinning around him. Then roughly shook himself, finished the shower and got out, wondering at this sudden and unusual upsurge of his libido.

he whispered, touching his head where the stone had hit him. He tried to recap the events of the last hours. Since the last vision was surely a dream, he felt positive every one of previous ones were dreams too, which meant he wasn't going crazy. Gay maybe, judging from the nature of all his dreams, but not crazy. He laughed, relieved. His mind wasn't getting wasted and still belonged to him. Probably it was trying to tell him something about some dormant desires related to a certain cop, but he could deal with it. How he still didn't know, but It really didn't bother him that much. If it was a phase, related someway with his accident, it was doomed to pass with or without his help. If it was permanent... Well... It could take some time to adjust to it, but as surprising as it was, it wasn't the end of the world.  


When, clean and dry, he climbed back into bed, he wished for a moment to be back in "his" little Victorian house in Maine, with the starry night out of the window and his lover next to him. That Jack wasn't alone anymore, and was loved.  
"Lucky bastard."


	4. Chapter 4

"Excuse me," Jack heard the woman snap to the man standing on her purse strap. The bus turned the corner, and everyone leaned a bit to the left. He sighed. Another day, another trip home to an irritable heater that burned half the rooms and left the others icy. Another dinner of pasta and sauce from the jar. Another *NBC Cop show* on TV. Perhaps one of the children would call.

He thought of the box in the closet with his ex wife's things. He had packed most of them and send them to her in California, but he still had 28 years of little gifts, faded photos of their wedding and of the kids growing up, tiny signs of a time when he still meant something in her life and wasn't just a nuisance in an otherwise fully satisfactory life. He hadn't managed to get rid of them yet and kept looking at them as they were the memorial plaque of the failure of a whole lifetime devoted to someone who eventually had dumped him for a brighter career and a kinkier sex life.

He jerked his thoughts away, tired of the pain that accompanied them every time. This was the night, he decided. He was going to go home and get rid of that pile of knick knacks once and for all. He'd ask the kids if they wanted their pictures and then he was going to burn everything else, Yeah, he was going to do just that or, even better, he was going to walk to the shore and throw everything in Lake Michigan, one piece at a time. He smiled sadly. That was the same plan he had plotted everyday for the last 823 days. It was getting as stale as his own life.

Jack became aware that someone was looking at him. Frowning slightly, he looked to his right and encountered a pair of friendly, probing eyes. "The ride home only gets longer when you think such sad thoughts," a deep baritone said softly, reaching him with surprising ease over the noises of the engine and traffic.  
"It's always the same," Jack responded without thinking. Yet even as he asked himself why he was talking to a stranger, those dark eyes changed, pooling with empathy, and he felt an inexpressible feeling of relief and connection.  
"It doesn't have to be."   
The bus turned again and suddenly the stranger's strong form was pressed against him. He felt warmth, and something 'alive' there, something he'd been without for too long.

Confused, he let his eyes drop and turned slightly away. The stranger didn't respond, but when the bus stopped to pick up more passengers, the crush became almost unbearable. Except that his back was now pressed against the stranger's front. It was hot in the bus, and yet the warmth was again so welcoming and welcome. Breath was tickling his neck, and with incredulity he realized a hand was lightly touching his hip. As he stood there, stunned and yet somehow not enraged, not even annoyed, the hand slowly moved down and back until it cupped his backside and very, very slowly caressed him.

Oh, God. He should do something about this. He should stop it... He should beg for more of it. He 'wanted' more of it. For blocks and blocks the bus continued on, and he became aware of himself as a man who would stand and let a stranger fondle him in a crowd.  
"Don't be ashamed," that voice said in his ear. "We've just figured things out quickly, that's all."  
"I...I don't..."  
"Shhh. This is my stop. Let's get something to drink and talk about it."  
Jack couldn't quite remember agreeing, but he was quickly moving with the stranger off the bus and onto the sidewalk. Briskly, the man walked towards a large brownstone, smoothly drawing out his keys as he climbed the stairs to the front door. And then they were inside. As simple as that.

Jack followed the man into the front room, wondering where the hell his sanity had gone. If being picked up by a total stranger on a bus wasn't courting disaster, he didn't know what it was anymore.   
The man seemed to read through his doubts and moved in front of him, extending his right hand in Jack's direction, smiling. Jack saw him completely for the first time. Mature, maybe older than him. Tall and long limbed. Impressive without being arrogant. The amused light in his eyes made him more impish than really dangerous. He seemed to promise a lot of fun. Jack's cock stirred and he almost gasped. It had been so long, and now...out of the blue...

"Let's do this right," the man said jovially. " I'm Lennie Briscoe. Pleased to meet you."  
Jack couldn't help smiling back. "Jack McCoy... And I'm frightened beyond belief."  
"Yeah." Lennie nodded. "I know."  
Jack swallowed again. He had to explain. He had to excuse what was going on without his permission, in his pants.  
"I'm not..." he told himself and Lennie.  
"I know."  
"I don't..."  
Briscoe smiled properly. "I know."  
"Not...not with men..."  
"Does it really matter?" Lennie asked. "If we care about each other, does it really make so much difference to you?"  
"I don't..." Jack thought of escape. He thought of pasta and sauce from a jar in that mouse's hole he called home. He thought of being held by someone who meant it. "I don't know."  
Lennie smiled, and there was such warmth and delight there Jack felt a little dizzy.  
Jack opened his mouth to speak again.   
"I don..." Was all he managed before Lennie's mouth covered his.

Two hands, his hands to be precise, jerked in surprise on Lennie's back, and his belly rolled over then tightened. Lennie's hands on his face and ass held him in place while he was firmly and thoroughly kissed. Out of control with curiosity, his brain fired questions at him in an insane spray of demands, while his body tried desperately to sort out the torrent of physical input. Was this how it felt to be kissed like a woman? Was this the way he did it to his wife? Was it any different?   
Lennie's mouth was hot. And wet. And hard. And pleasant, Jack told himself.   
This man sure knew how to kiss. A silky tongue was sliding in and out of his mouth, sending waves of lust down to his groin and clouding his brain. His dick throbbed. Jack angled his head to allow Lennie to go deeper. Completely focussed on giving and receiving the best kiss he could recall in ages, Jack leaned in and gave as good as he got. Which was pretty much everything, and very nearly too much. With a gasp, he pulled away. Air. His chest heaved in protest. His cock ached in protest. His logical mind had given up protesting in the face of such naked, furious lust.

"Oh boy... " he gasped out. He ran his tongue over wet lips and stared at the face in front of him, studying it as if for the first time. Deep, probing eyes regarded him.  
"What the hell is this?" Jack muttered, out of breath. There wasn't a hint of indignation in his voice, just an astonishment impossible to conceal.  
"It's a yes." Lennie answered, softly, without breaking eye contact.  
"A Yes to what?"  
"To whatever your question is, Jack. Yes if you wish to leave right now and pretend you never met me. Yes if you're up to try to walk on the wild side for one night. Yes if you want to know me better before we go for the whole nine yards and the" 'till death do us part'. Yes if you want to leave the sex out of the equation and just enjoy the company. I'm a good listener too."  
"Wow! That's quite an answer."  
Lennie smiled.

Jack reached for Lennie again, pulling him forward. But instead of letting himself be kissed, he kissed this stranger from the bus as though the fate of the world depended on giving him passion and pleasure. Then Lennie moaned slightly, deep in his throat, and Jack felt heady with power. He remembered how things worked, after all. He could show this bold seducer something more than hesitant desire -- trembling like a child and fighting something he wanted desperately. He would 'take' what was offered and count himself lucky.

With a growl, he simply dragged Lennie, who did not resist, to the soft carpet and began getting his clothes off as quickly as possible. Oh! that warm skin, so smooth to his fingers! Lennie was groaning loudly now, moving with him, getting his own clothes off until they were naked and pressed together.  
Laughing, feeling wonderful, Jack enclosed Lennie's left nipple in his lips and sucked gently, running a light touch over the erection he found just as he wanted it, so incredibly soft to the touch and hard in his grasp. He began to stroke, thinking that he would first get this stranger to come, then turn him over, spread his legs and, carefully, fuck him senseless. Oh, but that would feel so 'good'. Jack laughed, feeling more alive than he was able to remember.

***

And he woke up.

He was nothing but an erection and a prostrate body to support it. His face was flushed bright red. He pushed the sheets away and lay there on his back, hard as a rock, and simply felt his own arousal, seeing clearly in his mind the image he made.  
Slowly, sighing, he brought his hands to his stomach and lightly trailed his fingertips over his own flushed skin. He felt a stab of loneliness. His body was crying out for touches his own hands couldn't fully satisfy, and his hands were wishing fiercely for the soft skin of someone else near him. A someone who was definitively taking the shape and the form of his friend Lennie, whatever that meant.

Jack grunted and moved his hands to his nipples, pressing hard, enjoying the sensation as he rarely did. He played a while longer with his nipples before his hands lightly trailed down the rest of the way and reached his own hard, throbbing cock. "Ohhhh," he breathed as his own hands covered him, caressed him.  
"So good." And it was. There was no harm in this, no need to hold back, no need to worry or feel guilty, just himself giving himself pleasure. Just for that pleasure alone, he was glad for the sudden unstoppable flood of dreams in which he was drowning.

He came quickly, his whole body convulsing with the pleasure of it, and then he lay there a long time, ignoring the semen drying on his body, pleasantly sated,  
the lonely feeling gone as everything oozed contentment.

he couldn't help thinking, 


	5. Chapter 5

After a light breakfast, largely ruined by the necessity to avoid combining caffeine and pain killers, Jack made a quick call to Adam to report about his health and a longer one to Abbie to catch the news about how they were holding down the fort without him. Childishly, he resented the fact they 'were' holding down the fort without him just fine, but he made an effort to keep it concealed.

Of course, Abbie being Abbie, she had him spotted on the second 'O' of his peevish 'Good' and mocked him shamelessly until she managed to obtain a good, honest laugh from him and the promise to stop worrying about the office at least until the next Monday morning.

The end of the call with Abbie left Jack with a big dilemma: how to spend that Friday morning. He started walking from room to room looking for something to do, opening doors and switching on lights just to fight back the sense of claustrophobia that the almost unreal silence of his house was giving him. Then he piled together law books and settled down to do some research for a case, but trying to read those tiny lines kept clashing with his on and off headache, so he had to give up even this.

He gave in and admitted that he was at a total loss what to do with all that spare time. He wanted to go out for a while, but the fear of having another bout of narcolepsy and falling asleep in the middle of a street made him reconsider.

Out of sheer boredom, Jack changed the bedclothes on his bed and on the one in the never used guest room, vacuumed the floors, checked and reordered all his books, magazines and CDs on the shelves. Doing so he finally found a treasure: the newest digital re-mastered version of Pink Floyd's 'Dark Side of the Moon", still sealed. Silently he thanked his   
daughter for the gift, blamed himself for having forgotten its existence for so long, and put it in the CD player. Smiling, he settled down on the couch, put his hands beneath his head, closed his eyes and let the music envelop him. Spare time wasn't so bad, after all...

******

Jack stared at himself in the washroom mirror as he slowly washed his hands and wondered when he'd learned again how to smile. Probably around the time he'd found himself in front of Borlan's gun and decided that life was too good to let such a bastard take it away from him.  
He dreamily fell into a vision of a little ranch-style brick house surrounded by trees with a mini-van in the driveway. He nodded smugly at his reflection, knowing that it wasn't a dream any more. It was almost a reality.  
Drying his hands, he rushed out to the new Plymouth Voyager van he'd bought using part of the money he'd gotten from selling the rights to use his name in the movie about the Horny Satyr massacre. He got behind the wheel and started the motor, then drove out of the service station and toward the highway.  
A block away, he did a U-turn and came back to the service station, laughing at the look on Lennie's face as he stood in front of the mini-mart with two soft drinks and two sandwiches. Jack opened the passenger side door and took the soft drinks, then the sandwiches from Lennie's hands. Still left with a remnant of pain from the wounds Borlan's thug had inflicted on him, Lennie pulled himself up into the seat and fastened his seat belt. "That wasn't funny."  
Jack drove out of the station and proceeded toward the main highway in earnest. "Yes it was."  
Lennie couldn't keep from chuckling. "So where are we going?"  
Jack looked at him, his face a study in smug satisfaction. "Didn't I tell you?"  
"Nope."  
"Really?  
"Jack. Have mercy on a poor soul. After all that's happened, I've lost any remnant of enthusiasm for surprises."  
"Oh, but you're going to like this one."  
"No, I'm not."  
"Yes, you are." Jack laughed aloud. "Trust me."  
"With my whole life," Lennie answered and Jack saw his eyes loose the amusement of a second before and become somber. Damn.

Lennie was still too shaken. James Dominici, Borlan's right hand man, had tortured Lennie and killed Bern Lipranzer before being killed by Borlan himself. The physical wounds from that night were almost completely healed, but only God knew when he'd be able to recover from the ones inside. He still had nightmares almost every night and woke up crying. Jack knew it, since he still had them too and usually was already awake when   
Lennie started to thrash about in bed.  
Doctors had diagnosed that they both were suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, as if giving it a name made it easier to face. Well, it wasn't easy at all, but Jack was sure they'd manage to get over it sooner or later. They'd survived already. They were still alive, and with Borlan and Dominici dead, they were also free. Free to heal. Free to build something good. Free to dream again and that was a lot more than what they   
both had to start with when they met.  
Jack reached for Lennie and gently caressed his cheek, still too pale from his trauma. Lennie took his hand and gave it a light kiss on the palm, and smiled again.  
"That's my boy." Jack muttered, satisfied.

Thunderstorms which had been to the southeast passed right before them the moment they left the highway and started to climb the nearest hill. The lightning was relentless and awesome. As they drove into the storm, it became darker, and Jack turned on the headlights. Light rain began to fall on the windshield.  
"Well, Jack. If your surprise was an outdoor picnic, this storm literally pisses on your parade."  
"No, it doesn't," Jack answered, laughing. "It wasn't a picnic, and anyway I like storms."  
"You kidding?"  
"Not at all. When I was a kid I used to strip and go running on the grass when it rained like this. It made me feel wild, and as alive as the storm itself. Of course I stopped the day I learned what lightning really was, but I still miss it sometimes."  
Lennie laughed. " Wow! I'd never thought you capable of anything like that. You keep surprising me."  
"And I've just started. The real fun will start right..." Jack looked around, spotted what he was searching for and turned, leaving the main road for a secluded driveway that climbed the hill.  
"... Now. We're heading right there."  
"Where?"  
"Do you see that little brick house hidden by the trees at the end of this driveway?"  
"Yeah."  
"That's it"  
"What?" Lennie growled good naturedly.  
"Our little refuge. Do you recognize it?"  
"Of course I do. I sold it."  
"Yeah, I know. And your secretary told me of all your listings, this was the place you liked the most. I promised myself that if we survived the ordeal, I was going to leave L.A. for good, since we did, I talked with your clients and rented it. Just six months for now, but with an option for other six and eventually for buying it."  
Lennie's jaw dropped a couple of notches. "You can't be serious."  
"Yes, I am."  
Lennie stared at him, a confused grin on his face. "Damn. You ARE serious."   
Jack nodded, overjoyed.  
The storm became fierce, and Jack had the wipers on the fastest setting. He waited until the car turned the last bend and then killed the engine about a hundred yards from the porch of the house.  
Lennie rolled his eyes. "What now?" he asked, looking at the windows that were beginning to fog up.  
"Now I have another promise to take care of."  
Lennie frowned. "Another promise?"  
"Yup, It's a bit crazy, but I still made it to myself the moment I saw this perfect spot. And you know about me and promises."  
"Well, are you going to tell me?"  
"Of course. I promised myself I'd suck your cock the moment I had you in front of our new house. "  
"No way..."  
”Oh yes. And I don't want to have to think this out any more than I have already, so be a good boy and take it out."  
Lennie realized that he was serious. "No, Jack. Now's not the time. Try it during the heat of passion sometime. Take one little step at a time."  
"Unzip those pants, Lennie," growled Jack impishly.  
"Jack, no," pleaded Lennie. "There's so much to lose. It works so well the way it is. I don't want it ruined for good."  
"Believe me. Nothing will be ruined and things will work better. I'm not going to start my new life with you still hung up on this one little thing."  
"Your new life with..." Lennie gaped, and Jack took advantage of the moment. He unbuckled Lennie's belt and unzipped his jeans, pulling the still limp cock out where he could get to it. He gently stroked it, smiling as it came to life in his hands.  
"Hello, old friend. It's been a long time..." He joked.  
Despite his fears, Lennie couldn't help responding to Jack's touch. He couldn't believe this was happening.  
Jack stared at the growing penis as if it were a cup filled with some exotic, mysterious potion. He closed his eyes and without stopping to think about it, he opened his mouth wide and took it into his mouth. . It felt like having a mouth full of hot, wet velvet. Before long it had grown to full size and begun leaking; he sucked hard, breathing in the smell of cum and sweat.  
"Okay, that's enough," whispered Lennie.  
"Back off and let me do my job," Jack murmured between strokes. He felt he could continue this forever. Dimly, he thought his jaw should be hurting by now, or that he should have more trouble breathing, but he ignored all that and concentrated only on making Lennie feel as good as he could. He berated himself for having waited so long before trying. So much time wasted.  
"Oh, Jack, I can't hold it back," Lennie said with urgency, pushing at Jack's face "I'm gonna cum, Jack."  
"Uhhhhh," Jack responded, moving forward and sliding his lips all the way down the long, thick, throbbing cock.

Lennie tried to pull away, terrified that his semen would so totally revolt Jack that their relationship would be ruined. He opened the door and was pelted by the rain. Trying to step out of the car, he stumbled and fell backwards onto the ground, astonished that Jack was still clamped on him. A crackling, streaking bolt of lightning struck somewhere less than a mile away, and Lennie experienced the most dynamic climax of his life.  
Unable to see because of the rain in his eyes, he reached for Jack's face and neck, feeling a careful swallow. Jack lifted Lennie to his feet and held him in the rain, kissing him, offering him a taste of his own semen.

"Promise fulfilled," Jack shouted over the roar of the rain, laughing at the top of his lungs. Then he pushed Lennie down to his crotch and unzipped his own trousers, offering his frenzied, primed cock to Lennie's mouth. Another streak of lightning arced down from the sky and soared back upward, striking nothing, impregnating the entire area with dancing, static electricity. Jack erupted and leaned back against the car. He quaked   
violently as the throbbing offered ecstasy, then he soared to grand heights of rapture. He howled in celebration at the rain.

Lennie lifted himself from his kneeling position and embraced him around the waist and they kissed again until they both recovered their breath.  
"I feel like running... " Jack declared. He let trousers and boxers drop to his ankles, got rid of his soaked shirt and stood nude in the downpour.  
"You're crazy, you know that?"  
"Yeah. I'm happy, I'm alive and I'm in love. So I must be crazy..." He freed his ankles from the offending garments and sprinted stark naked toward the house, stopping midway to turn and gesture for Lennie to join him.  
"Well. Why not," Lennie laughed, throwing his t-shirt over his head and pushing away his trousers.

*********

Jack woke up reluctantly, feeling cheated for having to leave such a good place to come back to reality. And it wasn't just the arousal this time, it was the whole package: the laughter, the happiness, the future full of promises. It was the love and it was so real he kept feeling it, like an afterglow, even after he'd shaken away the last remnants of sleep.

If his subconscious was trying to tell him something, it was screaming it in his ears like a banshee now, and it was playing for the win. But why? Ok, he thought, the why is obvious. A stone had almost broken his skull and that should authorize any subconscious to take it as a wake up call and act accordingly. He had been practically hibernating since the day he'd lost Claire. He still missed her dearly, but he knew he had begun to suffer the loneliness and the need for physical contact long before the vivid dreams   
of the last two days had brought them into the open. So his subconscious was telling him it was time to start to live, and possibly love again, but was it really suggesting a man? Granted he needed some changes in his life, wasn't turning homosexual at his age a bit too much?

Jack tried to remember if he'd ever been attracted to a man, any man, before. There had been little flickers of interest, times when he'd find himself looking at a man and feeling something. It had happened, he remembered, during puberty, that confusing period of hormonal flux, when his sex drive was a sort of curse, a perpetual source of embarrassment he never managed to master.

And then, when he was seventeen, two very different women burst into his life and any confusion about his basic orientation was gone. Shortly thereafter, there was college, and the sudden rise of his personal star. Lovers, female lovers, seemed to fall into his hands the same way good grades seemed to be his for the taking.  
Oh there had been men who were interested, but things being what they were, he'd never had any reason to return the interest. Except one time, in college... What was his name?  
He snapped his fingers a couple of time trying to focus, and suddenly remembered: Bernard Lipranzer. He berated himself for not having made the connection before, because he'd been sure that name had to mean something.

Bernie Lipranzer was a year behind him in college and was the kindest, and the most unhappy guy Jack had ever met at the time. He'd taken him under his wing and actually wound up giving serious thought to the quiet invitation for a date that Bernie had extended one day, but then Angela Hilson, whom he had been steadily pursuing for weeks, had interrupted the conversation and he'd ended up going out with her instead of Bernie.   
Amazing how everything was coming back to him, when just seconds before he couldn't remember Bernie's name to save his life. Bernie never tried again and they lost track of each other pretty soon after that evening... And to cap it off, Angela had turned out to be quite a disappointment, boring, self-centered...

So Lip was the proof that his sudden interest in men was anything but that, and also explained why he kept feeling perfectly at ease in his dreams' scenarios instead of panicking like any "straight as an arrow" kind of guy would in front of a homosexual wet dream.

He guessed he was discovering that he was bisexual, admitting that in a very odd kind of way, it made sense. Undeniably he did love women, and not just for the sex. He liked being with them, talking to them, listening to them, looking at them. He had loved Claire and when he'd lost her he'd thought he'd never be able to love another woman the way he loved her. It'd wound up being a self fulfilling prophecy.

So was his subconscious trying to skirt around that block, bringing back his deep buried and totally forgotten attraction to men? If he had to take his dreams as proof the answer was obviously yes, and it seemed that his subconscious, busy little bastard, had also chosen the object of his future interest, but why Lennie Briscoe and not someone else completely, he was not able to explain.  
It was true they'd grown to like each other during the years and had become friends, but that was all. It was also true he enjoyed Briscoe's company, he liked to play pool with him every time their tight schedules allowed them to, and he missed it when they were forced to skip an evening. He liked talking with him. They were both workaholics, lone wolves, both too much dented around the edges to not comprehend each other at a first glance.  
He was glad to concede that Briscoe was now his closest friend, but was that enough to make him the next 'special someone' in his life; the one he was born to be with?  
Was it a real possibility or was he just working himself up out of mere wishful thinking?  
Putting aside the fact that Briscoe was probably straight to the bones, there was always the chance that, once tested on the field, all his theories could deflate like punctured balloons.  
What if, despite the vivid dreams of the last days, he'd wind up finding himself totally uninterested in the real thing, or frozen on his feet when he tried to actually do something, or found himself totally unmoved by Briscoe's nearness?  
"You've got a lot of circumstantial evidence, Jack, but not a case," he told himself, after what seemed to him like an awfully long amount of time spent in perfect stillness. "So what are you going to do now? Are you going to sit on your ass some more, or are you going to look for some answers?"  
Thinking it was probably the craziest thing he'd ever done in his whole life, he picked up the phone and called Lennie.


	6. courting lennie 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack wants to move from dreams to reality

Lennie sat at his desk watching the clock crawl in slow motion towards 5 o'clock. It was a slow Friday afternoon, he wasn't on the schedule for the weekend, and he just couldn't drum up any interest in the case he and Ed were working on. Of course, it wasn't like he had any major plans for the weekend in any case. But just on principle, he wanted this day to be over.

The phone rang; he and Ed eyed each other, both thinking the same thing - please don't let us catch a case now!   
He sighed and picked it up. "Briscoe."   
"Hey, Lennie!"   
"Jack!" He signaled Ed that they were off the hook. "How are you feeling?"   
"Better. But going out of my mind with boredom."   
Lennie laughed. "What, you forget how to relax? It's this thing people do when they're not working."   
Jack chuckled. "So how would YOU know about it?"   
"Hey, I manage to relax even when I AM working."   
"Don't let Van Buren hear you say that! Listen, Lennie, I just wanted to thank you for dropping off dinner yesterday. It helped a lot."  
Lennie heard something change in Jack's voice. The two of them had gotten to be pretty good friends over the years working together. But they had always kept a certain emotional distance; the classic "guy club" rules applied. But there was something there, a certain sincerity, that Lennie had never heard before. He guessed coming within inches of being killed by that brick had affected Jack even more than the concussion itself. He felt his own guard dropping slightly. "Yeah, well, glad to help out. You going to be OK tonight?"

Jack's hands were trembling holding the phone. Lennie had actually given him the opening he needed. "I'm feeling a lot better. Was thinking about ordering out for Chinese, but they don't deliver unless you order enough for a small army."   
Lennie laughed. "Is that an invitation?"   
"I really could use the company, Lennie."   
"Well, in that case, how can I refuse? Besides, it beats the hell out of staring at the TV back at my place."   
"Thanks, Lennie."   
There it was again - something in the voice -? Well, what better karma than spending a Friday evening visiting a sick friend?

When at long last the hands of the clock finally found the 5, Lennie bailed. Of course, Friday rush hour traffic didn't make it easy to get across town to Jack's place. But eventually he got there and even found a parking space pretty close by, so he figured he was doing pretty good.

Jack kept eyeing the clock, wondering when Lennie would get there. He knew traffic would be a mess. But he was so nervous it seemed that the minute hand had stopped moving. His doubts about whether he would react to the real thing were already put to rest; just listening to Lennie's voice on the phone had wreaked havoc on his system, and knowing he was coming over had him all worked up already.   
He was afraid he was going to say or do something really stupid and scare Lennie off or lose his friendship for good. That wasn't an option.  
He knew he had to take this slow and be prepared to forget about the whole thing if it meant jeopardizing what he already had with Lennie. He tried to remain calm, but it wasn't working. When the doorbell finally rang, he all but jumped out of his skin.

He took a moment to compose himself and opened the door. A wave of pure lusty desire swept over him at the sight of the tall broad-shouldered man in front of him.   
"Hey, Lennie!" He managed, mentally thanking his courthouse experience for keeping the quivers out of his voice.  
Lennie gave him a good once-over and nodded. "You're looking a lot better, Jack," he said as he took off his overcoat and suit coat. Jack took them and stashed them in the closet, then led Lennie into the living room. They sat down and exchanged the usual pleasantries, then poured over the menu and placed their dinner order. Lennie spotted the jewel case from the Pink Floyd CD Jack had been listening to earlier, and that sparked a discussion of 70's era classic rock. Turned out they had a lot of the same favorites, and a lot of memories to go with them. Lennie had him laughing hysterically with a tale of a Stones concert he had never quite made it to when their dinner arrived.

After dinner, Lennie sat back and decided to dig a little. "You really OK, Jack?"  
"Yeah, I guess so. Why?"  
"I don't know. Just, when you called this afternoon, I thought I heard something in your voice. Something, I don't know, different."  
Jack sighed. "Always the detective, aren't you, Lennie?"  
Lennie smiled. "It's not just my job, Jack, it's who I am."  
"Yeah, and that's the problem."  
"Huh?"  
Jack looked up at him. "You're just like me there, Lennie. Somewhere along the line, the job took over. Sometimes I feel like it's all I've got anymore. Today, I couldn't work, I didn't know what to do."  
Lennie sighed. "You've been thinking too much, Jack. All this free time isn't good for you."   
Jack shook his head. "It's not just that, Lennie. I could have died this week, and who would have cared? Sure as hell not my ex-wife; my daughter might shed a few tears, but that's about it."  
Lennie shook his head. "That's not true, Jack. Abbie cares about you - and so do I."  
Jack looked up into the deep blue eyes. He gulped a couple of times before finding his voice. "Thanks, Lennie. That means a lot."   
Lennie reached out and squeezed Jack's arm, thankfully letting go before Jack passed out from the blood rushing to his crotch.

They sat there in silence for a moment. "Lennie, this thing really got to me. Ever since that brick knocked me out, I've been having the most amazing, vivid dreams. At first I thought I was losing it, because I didn't realize I was falling asleep on my feet; it felt more like a hallucination, like I was living the life of another person. Who just happened to look like me and be named Jack McCoy. He has a full life, somebody he cares about, a future full of promise. It happened a couple of times, each time he's somebody different, a cop in LA, a lawyer in Maine, a working stiff riding a bus, but it's always the same ending - he finds that special someone and lives happily ever after."

He sighed and looked up at Lennie. "Ever since Claire died, I've been hiding behind my job, not letting myself care about anybody. I think my subconscious wants me to wake up and live again. But I'm not sure I know how anymore."

Lennie sighed and made a face. "I know what you mean, Jack. I decided a long time ago that two failed marriages were enough. But there are days when I really wish I had somebody to come home to. Lots of days in fact ..."

Jack saw his own loneliness reflected in Lennie and realized again how terrible it was. "Lennie, I was thinking. Maybe we should get out more, do stuff together. Hanging out with a friend beats sitting home alone." He was so nervous; it sounded reasonable, would Lennie pick up on his real motive?

Lennie bit his lip and nodded. "You know, you've got something there, Jack. Maybe a couple of old bachelors could tear this town up a bit. Yeah, I'd like that." He smiled, and Jack couldn't help beaming in return. "In fact, I'm not working this weekend. You feel up to getting out tomorrow?"   
"Are you kidding? If I have to spend another full day trapped here I think I'll end up killing somebody."   
"Well, I don't want you overdoing it when you're still not 100%. How about we watch the Knicks game on TV tomorrow afternoon, then head over to O'Malley's and shoot some stick?"

It was all Jack could do to hide his elation. As it was, his smile lit up the room. "Sounds perfect, Lennie. Thanks."   
"Hey, isn't there a game on tonight?" Jack dug out the remote and they settled in for an evening in front of the TV. He very carefully sat as far away from Lennie as possible; afraid if he was too close he'd give something away, do something stupid. Just being near him like this was a killer turn-on.

By the time the game was over and Lennie headed home, he was about ready to burst. As he locked the door behind his friend, his hands were already reaching for his belt, desperate to get to his throbbing cock. He was thankful he'd had the foresight to wear a very loose pair of jeans; better do the same tomorrow. He slid the jeans and his underwear down to his knees and sank back onto the couch where Lennie had been sitting just minutes ago. He could still feel the warmth from his body, imagined it still here.

****

Lennie's body, already too close for comfort, scooted a bit closer on the couch, his hand resting gently on the inside of Jack's thigh. Jack sighed with pleasure. "It's all right. Just relax and enjoy."  
"Yesss," he hissed as that hand went to his groin and applied light pressure. "You always make it so good."  
"You're easy to please," Lennie's responded, stroking him now, getting him to sigh and moan as the pressure increased.  
Jack felt overwhelmed with the sensation of all his blood rushing to his cock. Oh, he needed this. It felt wonderful.   
"How about I take care of this now?" Lennie said, his fingers making it entirely clear what 'this' was.   
"Yes, please!" Jack shouted.  
He was suddenly afraid of making too much noise, of being too demanding or something... but then Lennie made good his promise, a gentle series of touches coaxed feeling from him, tracing that vein underneath, dancing around the swollen head, then simply wrapping around him and stroking lightly, then harder, then harder still, until he came, joyously, into that grasp.

****

"Aaahhhh!" he cried out as the explosion shook him.   
Basking in the afterglow, Jack wondered if perhaps he had fallen asleep and dreamed again, but there was nothing of his "other lives" in the vision he had just experienced. It was just him, taking his own pleasure while fantasizing about his best friend and an alternative way to cap that pleasant evening off.   
"Face it Jack, whatever it is, you got it bad..."

Later, as he crawled into bed, he wondered how he was going to survive until he got up the courage to find out if Lennie could even be interested. After being together all afternoon tomorrow, he'd be so hard he doubted he'd be able to concentrate on their pool game.   
It was going to hurt so good ...!


	7. courting lennie 2

He crawled into the tent, stripped down to his longjohns and quickly dove into the sleeping bag for warmth.   
"I'm getting addicted to you," his lover said as they snuggled closer together in their joined sleeping bag. The camp was set up for the night, and their climbing equipment was packed safely away from the cold. It might freeze overnight, and they had set up their tent far from any possible avalanche paths. Indeed, they'd been fortunate to find a good spot under a peak of solid rock and surrounded by the last of the trees. Tomorrow they would reach the summit. It wasn't a difficult climb, really, but a very beautiful one.  
He felt his pleasantly sore muscles relax as his lover's hands moved over his body, finding their way inside his longjohns. The air in the tent was warming quickly, and, as he reciprocated with his own touches, his lover's body got warmer still.

"I thought you were only addicted to climbing," he teased, "and that I was just a fringe benefit."

"You know you're my favorite peak to mount," the man in his arms leered. Outside, a timber wolf's howl could be faintly heard. "Or would you rather do me?" "I don't care," He groaned, feeling cheated that he wasn't kissing his lover right now. "As long as we do it together, I don't care what it is." And then they did kiss, and he was amazed, always so amazed at the heat which completely flooded him as those lips pressed to his own. He was made for this, and his lover was made for it as well, fitting together with him so perfectly, their bodies, their interests, their characters. What they had seemed inevitable and correct, as though a scientific proof could demonstrate that they belonged together.  
Skilled hands were moving urgently now, leaving deep trails of warmth over his body. Somehow they would have to maneuver around their clothes and the bag and...

"Ooohhh," he breathed as his cock pressed forward through the parting of all that cloth to find his partner's bare hip. They both squirmed, laughing, until they were pressed together, and all thoughts of more complex choreography melted away to leave only that basic and yet perfect thrusting, stimulating them, getting them ready to go right over the edge.  
His lover nibbled on his ear, and he thought he would simply explode. ...  
****  
Lennie woke up as the orgasm shook him, gasping for breath.   
// Damn. Wet dream? THAT hasn't happened in a LONG time ...// Luckily he was wearing boxers; they'd go into the wash a lot easier than changing the sheets. He tried to grab onto the details of the dream before they disappeared. Climbing a mountain ... Him... Ah... That was funny, but not as funny as having sex with a man in a double sized sleeping bag while climbing a mountain.  
What had Jack said about vivid dreams?   
He wondered if Jack's dreams were as vivid as this one and with the same theme.  
Probably not, given Jack's reputation with the ladies, and yet Lennie knew he hadn't been living up to it lately. Claire's death had really hit him hard. Lennie started to wonder. Last night Jack had been much more emotionally open than usual, talking about the loneliness they both fought on a daily basis. And he had sat as far away from Lennie as possible, as if he were afraid of getting too close. And, several times, he had caught Jack watching HIM instead of the game.  
Sure as hell there was something going on in his friend's mind, something he wasn't quite ready to talk about yet. But could it be what he was thinking and if it was, what was he supposed to do since he wasn't entirely sure he wanted anything to happen?  
He wasn't entirely sure he didn't want anything to happen either.  
The question was: Was his detective's instinct picking up clues or was his subconscious making him seeing things where there weren't any?  
"Can't think about it with my boxers wet, " he concluded solemnly, rolling out of bed and heading toward the shower.

****

Jack was feeling much better Saturday morning. Almost himself again. That is, except for the twisting in his gut from his nervousness about today. He knew he couldn't take much more of this - he had to find some way to figure out if Lennie could handle a come-on.

Just before the 1PM tip-off, Lennie showed up on his doorstep with his arms full of grocery bags laden with chips, dips, sodas, and other munchies. Jack had been glad to take some of the bags and deliver them to the kitchen table; one look at Lennie and his heart had started racing. // Damn it, McCoy, get a hold of yourself! // He stashed the sodas in the fridge, grabbed a couple for now, and joined Lennie in the living room.

Lennie noticed the redness in Jack's face as he rushed off with the sodas. He had dug out a first round of munchies and parked them on the coffee table. If Jack wanted to reach them he'd have to sit on the couch with Lennie. // This should be interesting. //

Jack realized the seating arrangements necessitated by the snack bar, and wondered if Lennie was testing him. He forced himself to casually hand Lennie one of the sodas and sit beside him on the couch. He was too aware of the nearness of that warm body, so he tried to focus his attention on the TV instead. They quickly got wrapped up in the fast-moving game, shouting at the refs, pigging out on the munchies, a typically testosterone-laden Saturday afternoon. Jack actually managed to relax by the end of the first period. As the talking heads took over during the break, they actually had a chance for some conversation.

"So how are you feeling today, Jack?"  
"A lot better. Almost normal, even."  
"Good. Still up for getting out tonight?" Jack grinned. "Wouldn't miss it for the world, Lennie." "Maybe we can even pick up a couple of ladies tonight ...?" Jack's heart froze; that was NOT what he wanted to hear. "I don't know, Lennie. It's been so long, I don't think I even know any pickup lines anymore. And besides, who would want a couple of old fogies like us?" Lennie grimaced. "Ain't that the truth. I'm too old for the kind of gals I'd like, too young for the kind that likes me." "And there go our reputations."  
"Down the drain, it looks like."  
"Yeah."  
They both nodded and chuckled. Lennie said, "Sometimes I envy Mike." "Logan? Why?"  
"He packed and moved to Maine last week." "What's in Maine?" Jack asked.  
Lennie waited a few seconds to emphasize the point and enjoy Jack's reaction. He nonchalantly said "A job as county sheriff... and Ben Stone".   
Jack choked on his soda. "What?"  
"Yeah. They were having an affair before Stone left New York and now they've decided to pick up from where they left off." "You're kidding me."  
"Nope. I helped Mike pack a couple weeks ago. Nobody was more surprised than me when Mike asked me to be his best man at their wedding." "Wedding? They're going to get married?  
"So it seems."  
"I can't believe it... Well maybe Stone. He has always been a bit on the soft side, but Logan... " "Well, Mike's bi. Everybody knew it."  
"I didn't."  
"You didn't look enough or didn't know where to look." "It didn't bother you when you worked together?" "A bit in the beginning, but in the long run, no, it didn't bother me at all. Unfortunately, it bothered him. You remember how he flushed his career down the drain. Nothing would have happened if he were a bit more at ease with himself at the time. Anyway he's at ease now and he and Stone came out of the closet and burned their bridges behind them real good on their way to Maine." Jack shook his head, an enigmatic smile on his lips. "World's getting stranger by the minute. They make such an odd couple..." "You can say that! But they both seem happy now, and I guess that's all that really matters."

Lennie noted that smile, wondering exactly what it meant. Jack seemed surprised by his news, but certainly not offended in any way. And he sure hadn't been interested in finding any female companionship; shot that down hard. It was looking more and more like he had a decision to make...

Lennie's news about Mike and Ben had certainly been unexpected. Jack started to wonder just how much was going on around here that he managed to never notice. He really had been burying himself in the job too much. Lennie certainly wasn't offended by the idea of two men together, but the million dollar question remained - was he interested himself? And how was Jack going to find out?

****

The game started up again, ending the conversation. They spent the rest of the afternoon watching the game and NOT talking about what was on both their minds. When the game ended, they decided that an afternoon of snack food left them both craving a real meal. They decided to head over to the pub early to grab some burgers and maybe get a pool table before the big evening crowd arrived. When he finally got out of the apartment, Jack heaved a big sigh. "Free at last!" Lennie laughed. "Cabin fever?"   
"Whatever gave you that idea?"

They walked the couple of blocks to O'Malley's, enjoying the brisk fall air. It had warmed up a bit since Jack's last venture outside. "Now this is more like it. Last week felt more like winter than fall." Lennie grinned. "Yeah, and you didn't even have to be out in it most of the time. I did."

They continued to chat about the weather, why after 25 years in New York Jack still was a Chicago fan, anything innocuous. But once they got to O'Malley's, Lennie decided to push a little. Just to see Jack's reaction, he flirted with the waitress who brought their dinner, and was rewarded with an icy glare that he was sure Jack wasn't even consciously aware of. By the time they were done with dinner, Lennie was sure he had to make up his mind. He was curious, but he had no idea if he would even respond.

The place was starting to get crowded, so Jack paid their dinner bill while Lennie went to claim a pool table. Jack wasn't a bad player, but no real competition for Lennie. So to make it interesting, Lennie had started teaching Jack instead of just playing against him. He racked the balls for a game of 8-ball and waited for Jack to join him. "Your break. Remember what I said about lining up the shot."

Jack nodded. He had noticed Lennie flirting with the waitress and was actually feeling jealous. His earlier nervousness was gone; right now he was determined to command Lennie's attention. His break shot sent the balls caroming all over the table, sinking the 6-ball. He made several more excellent shots, using all the tricks Lennie had been teaching him; he was clearly showing off.

Lennie watched him from the sidelines, the coach intently studying his pupil. Except this time he wasn't just noticing how Jack held the cue stick, he was noticing how those long legs turned into such a nice ass. He felt the first stirrings of something in his groin. Maybe there was something here after all...

Jack finally missed a shot, and Lennie came back to his coach role. "OK, you know WHY you missed that?" Lennie leaned in and reset the balls. "Line it up again." Jack leaned over the table, lining up the cue. Lennie leaned over him and reached over to adjust the angle of his elbow. "Here..." It was like a lightning bolt shot through them as their bodies touched. They both froze for a moment. Lennie recovered first and backed away. "Keep your elbow out, use your wrist to power the shot." His voice wasn't too steady, but it was enough. His doubts about responding were gone, and he was wishing he had thought to wear a looser pair of jeans.

Jack caught his breath and forced himself to relax. That touch had been like fire. He straightened up and turned to look at Lennie.   
"Do it." Lennie commanded. Their eyes met, silently acknowledging what they had just felt. Jack took a deep breath and turned back to the table, sinking the shot. Suddenly the game had turned serious; the next shot he missed, Lennie took over and cleared the table.   
Jack wasn't giving up. "Best two out of three?" Lennie looked at him, an eyebrow cocked high. "You think you can take me?" "I can sure as hell try."  
Having already won the first game, Lennie knew all he had to do was run the table and Jack wouldn't even have a chance. But he had to admit he wasn't at his best right now, his concentration kept wandering. He tried to focus, and took the break, sinking several balls. He had solids. He stalked the pool table, taking his time, finding the best shots to set him up two, three shots in advance. He had almost run the table when at the last minute he caught a glimpse of Jack out of the corner of his eye, licking his lips as he watched Lennie attack the table. It was enough to throw Lennie's timing off; he missed the shot.

For some reason, it became imperative to Jack that he win; he had to beat Lennie at his own game. His competitive nature took over and he took his shot, sinking the 9-ball. Lennie had sunk the 10 in the break, along with several of his solids, so Jack had 5 more shots then the 8-ball. He concentrated, and took out the 15, then the 12 and 11. He was in a zone. The 14 sank, and finally the 13. Now the 8 ... yes!

He looked up, grinning in triumph. A crowd of people had started to gather around, sensing the tension around this particular table. Lennie was well known here, they wondered who it was who could challenge their resident shark.   
Lennie stood back, holding his stick in his hands, watching closely. His eyes met Jack's and saw the challenge there. He nodded and smiled. You could cut the tension with a knife.  
Jack racked the balls for the final game. This was it; he knew he had to run the table. If he gave Lennie any chance at all, he'd lose. He took a deep breath, and took the break. Only managed to sink one, a solid. Enough. He worked the table, remembering to always think about where the cue would be after the shot to set up for the next. Three more balls sunk, but then he miscalculated. The cue ended up halfway across the table from where it should have been. The crowd let out a communal "Oh!" as they realized he had no good shot. He looked up and saw the predatory gleam in Lennie's eye, knowing that he had just beaten himself. He walked around the table, searching for any option that he might have a snowball's chance in hell of making. There was one remote possibility... he lined up the shot, took a deep breath, and let it go. A three-cushion bank, a very tricky shot, and he missed by only a fraction of an inch. The crowd let out another "Oh!" as he backed off and gestured Lennie to the table.

Lennie felt the relief coursing through him; Jack had come way too close on that last shot - he'd taught him too well! As he walked to the table, his arm brushed against Jack's and they stared at each other for a moment before moving on. The tension between them was almost unbearable; the tightness in his groin, excruciating. He willed his nerves to calmness and focused on the game, sinking 6 balls in quick succession. With only one ball to go before the 8, he slipped, not giving the cue quite enough power. The 12-ball hung on the edge of the pocket, holding the observers in suspense for what felt like minutes before it finally went in. Lennie joined in the communal sigh of relief and easily sank the 8 to take the game. The crowd cheered then began to disperse.

Jack was sitting on a stool by the bar, watching. For just a moment, he'd had a ray of hope. He'd come so close... Lennie came up to him, getting way too close. That predatory gleam was still in his eyes, and his hand was gripping Jack's arm. "I think we should go home now, don't you?" Jack swallowed hard. "Yeah."

****


	8. courting lennie 3

Jack opened his apartment door with fingers that shook. They had walked the couple of blocks back to his apartment in silence. Passions that had flared had a chance to cool down in the cold October night. Now that the moment of confrontation was coming he didn't felt confident anymore. He was going to call it a momentary lack of reason and pretend nothing ever happened. Yeah, they were going to put the whole thing behind them and go on with their lives.

It sounded like a good plan until the lock turned, and he led the way into the apartment, flicking on a light to dispel the gloom cast by the darkness outside.

Lennie closed the door but didn't move further inside the apartment. Suddenly he seemed victim of a bout of shyness too.

"Do you want something to drink?" Jack asked. It seemed the lamest opening line ever used, but at least it broke the charged silence.  
"Yeah."  
"A soda?"  
"That'll do."  
"Do you mind if I go for something stronger?" Lennie smiled with just the corner of his mouth. Jack had never minded about drinking alcohol in front of him before. Were they already changing?   
"Don't worry about me," Lennie noticed that Jack's hand was still shaking a little as he poured his scotch and tried to find a wisecrack to lighten the tension, but nothing came. Apparently, he thought, Jack wasn't the only one who was nervous.

The two men sat across from each other in the warm, dimly-lit living room.   
"Lennie." Jack finally broke the strained silence.   
"Yes?"   
"Can I ask you a personal question?"   
"Of course. Shoot."  
Jack downed the rest of his scotch, thumped the snifter on the coffee table, got up and retreated to the window. With his back to his guest, he ran his hands through his hair, then forced himself to turn around.   
"Have you ever..."  
He trailed off into silence. Finally, Lennie prodded him on: "What?" "God. This is more difficult than I thought... Have you ever been with a man?" "No." Lennie answered placidly and, seeing the disappointment on Jack's face, added quickly "Not when I was sober." Jack's eyebrows climbed a notch on his forehead, proving he wasn't expecting it.   
"I was a high functioning alcoholic. I didn't get violent or sleepy or whatever. But when I was really high on booze I had the morals of an alley cat, and its habits too. I liked to get my dick sucked so I never said no to a blow job, and usually I didn't particularly care who was doing the work. I never consciously looked for a man, but didn't avoid them either. To be bluntly honest, there was a time in my life where I knew by heart the map of every glory hole in this city. When I got dry, I put all that behind me, trying to achieve some sense of order in my life." "Oh..."  
"Which doesn't mean I took a vow of celibacy. I just cut the excesses. What about you, Jack? Have you ever?"

Jack took a deep breath and sighed. "Not physically. When I was young I fantasized about it some times and in college I really thought about it for a little while. There was this friend of mine and I was sure he had a crush on me and I wondered what it would be like to try, but then the 'femme fatale' of the week stepped in and I forgot about my other plans until it was too late. My friend took it bad and we wound up not talking anymore." "And after that, you never?"   
"Nope. Not even once. I dated lots of women, married once. Divorced. Dated a lot more, built a couple of meaningful relationship with my assistants and eventually I met Claire. I've been so busy I simply forgot to think about being with a man." He faced the window and rested his forehead on the cool glass. "Until a stone almost broke my skull and I suddenly started to have all these strange dreams..."   
An impish grin flashed across Lennie's face. "About me?"   
"Yeah... No... Not exactly... Oh hell, I don't know anything anymore." Lennie let out the breath he didn't realize he'd been holding.   
"So when you were an L.A. Cop, a lawyer in Maine and the other one on the bus, I was there too?"   
"Yeah. Always you, and only you."  
"And we had sex?"  
"You betcha. In full Technicolor and Dolby surround. Not a chance of thinking we spent time playing cards."   
"And it felt so good you woke up curious to know what it may be like for real? "   
"Wish it was that simple. I learned to deal with that kind of curiosity when I was 13 years old and it never failed me." He bit his lip, trying to find the words, turned to look at Lennie. "It's that I keep reacting to you. Even this very moment, listening to your voice is giving me goose bumps. And I've never been so scared in all my life!"

Lennie was touched by the sincerity in Jack's voice. "I'm scared too, but not as scared as I thought I'd be in this situation. Probably it's been seeing Mike with Stone, or maybe it's been there for a while and I just didn't see it until today, but I feel the attraction too. I guess the question is, do we do anything about it?"   
"Like what?"  
"Well. We can fiercely cling to our Straight masks and pretend we dreamed this conversation too. Or..." Lennie stood up from the chair and walked toward the windows, stopping just a few inches from Jack. Too shy to look at each other directly, they looked at each other's reflections in the glass. Lennie found the picture they made in the glass strangely sweet: two frightened middle-aged 'teenagers' on their first date ever. In an odd kind of way, it was pleasant to feel 'that young' again.  
"... Or we can give it a try and see what happens. Who knows, maybe it's just our imagination playing tricks on us and going for the real thing will break the spell." They turned at the same time, finding themselves face to face, so close to be able to feel the heat of their bodies and inhale each other's aftershave.  
"Do you really think it'll work like that?" Jack asked, his voice charged with tension.  
"Fat chance." Lennie closed the distance between them and their lips met.

In a moment they were all over each other, grabbing handfuls of flesh through fabric, lips crashing together, mouths opening, tongues darting inside, swishing across the palate, right, left, then back out again. Leaving nothing behind but a pants-load of fire and ice, plus groins suddenly aching and painfully erect again. Jack could swear he felt the seam of his zipper printing itself into the skin of his painfully trapped dick.

Lennie moved his hips slightly, and Jack's homed back in, with a will of their own. They circled around, cat-like, then stilled, tight against what felt most definitely like a boner. It felt reassuring to know he wasn't the only one royally screwed by the last turn of the events.

Lennie pulled his head away, trying to catch his breath.  
"You okay?" he asked very softly.   
What a question, Jack thought, still dazed. Was he okay? The whole question seemed too big to know how to start answering it.  
Lennie spoke again. "Jack?"  
"Huh?" Ok, Jack thought, power of speech totally gone. It's a first.

Lennie brought his thumb round the side of Jack's neck and rubbed the side of his jaw. It slid over the damp, unshaven skin. Jack stared up slightly into deep blue eyes that seemed unconcerned with anything other than asking if he was okay. Only one way to answer that question came to Jack's mind and he decided it was worth a try. He pushed Lennie against the window, standing between his slightly spread legs, plundering his mouth with all the hunger he felt. Lennie gasped surprised, then pushed back, one big hand gripping Jack's bicep, angling his mouth against Jack's, meeting passion with passion.

"Oh God, we're so screwed..." he quipped, out of breath when they finally came out for air. Jack couldn't help but laugh, aloud and freely and Lennie laughed too: a warm baritone chuckle that melted Jack's bones. They lolled together, giggling like schoolboys, truly relaxed together.

Eventually, Lennie calmed and pushed himself away. He gripped Jack's biceps and looked him up and down, eyes lingering on his crotch long enough to make Jack squirm slightly.  
"What?" he whispered.  
"Just looking," Lennie replied softly.  
"Yeah, well..."  
"I'd like..." It was Lennie's turn to hesitate. Jack tilted his head up to look into his face.  
"What?"

Letting go of one arm, Lennie put his hand between them, and laid it over Jack's crotch. Unable to help himself, Jack jumped a little. Lennie grinned at the reaction and tried again. "I'd like... I'd like to do something about this," he said, gently squeezing Jack's package.

Jack groaned and thrust forward. Fuck, the pressure was killing him. He pushed his hips again. Screw the doubts, screw the fears, and screw that he was still officially straight. He wanted to do something about it too or his balls were going to explode.

"Oh..." he said, dropping his head to Lennie's shoulder again. The hand began a rhythmic motion. "Oh, boy..." Jack moaned. The friction was exquisite and dangerous.  
"Lennie... ..." he gasped into Lennie neck. "Oh God, Lennie, stop. Please." "What...?"  
"I'm too close..."

Nodding, Lennie pulled his hand away, leaned forward and kissed him lightly, in apology. Jack accepted it and reached out his hand to reciprocate. He stopped, suddenly unsure, and looked at Lennie as if to ask "may I?". Lennie nodded, his lopsided smile inviting Jack to help himself.  
Out of pure boldness, totally in contrast with the shyness of a moment before, Jack unfastened Lennie's belt and unzipped his fly, then shyness hit back with a vengeance, making him blush and stop in mid action, just before his hand reached the seams of Lennie's tented boxers.

"We're in front of a window, Lennie." He tried to justify himself, berating his sudden dissociation. This constant flip-flopping from need to fear and back was killing him.  
"Should we move it elsewhere," Lennie suggested, whispering. "your bedroom, maybe?" "Yeah... The bedroom..." Again the hesitation, and Lennie sensed it.  
"We can stop here, Jack."  
"No, damn it. I don't want to stop. And I'm not going to if you're ok with this." "I'm ok with this, Jack. Never been more ok in my life." Lennie growled, almost purring. He held Jack in his arms, and started kissing across his brow, his eyelids, his cheekbones with devastating tenderness. Jack's knees gave way, but recovered quickly. He lifted Lennie's hand to his lips and kissed the fingers, that searing, consuming gaze never leaving his face. And suddenly they were against each other, arms criss-crossing, legs interleaving, fingers meshing.  
Incapable of coherent speech again, Jack reached for Lennie and tried to get to the buttons on his shirt. Lennie captured that hand, and then the other, turning them both over and kissing the palms alternately.   
"We're still in front of the window, Jack." Jack nodded, circled Lennie's hips with his arm and headed for the bedroom.

Lennie sat down on the comforter and waited for Jack's next move, looking expectantly at his naked, vulnerable gaze. He wondered if he had to take the lead, but decided otherwise. Jack was still struggling inside his head and needed his time to cope with it. He saw every phase of his battle writing itself on the creases of his face and couldn't help smiling when the last remnants of doubt left its place to resolution and Jack reached him on the bed, almost straddling him and aiming directly for his mouth.

Slowly Jack's fingers moved to first button of Lennie's shirt and then the second and the third, sliding the shirt bit by bit off his shoulders, rubbing his face against Lennie's skin. Not even kisses, really, just light touching with parted lips, breathing in that addictive manly scent that made his pulse race with desire.

When Lennie was bare-chested before him, Jack started on his own shirt, but Lennie's patience gave out and suddenly there were buttons flying everywhere as he simply hauled the shirt up and off in one impetuous motion. They were both panting and flushed, and eager to leave ' slow and gentle' for another time. They fell clumsily side by side on the wide bed, fumbling with belts and zippers, aching to touch hot, yearning flesh. They came fast, lying groin to groin, their pants barely undone and pushed down their thighs, their mouths locked, their hands sliding together over their cocks.

As a first time it was not great, but it was wonderful. Their bodies needed release too much to slow down to a romantic seduction. They rested side by side, smiling, sticky and still half blind with the force of their orgasms. Jack recovered first and rolled off the bed, almost tripping over his own half-mast trousers. He sighed exaggeratedly and tried to peel them off. He groaned discovering he still had his shoes on, then laughed. They had sex with their shoes and socks on. Shaking his head at the less than romantic practicalities, he finished undressing and headed for the bathroom, looking for a washcloth. He cleaned himself up, then soaked another washcloth and came back to his lover.

He let the word run in his head for a while. His lover. His male lover. And it seemed just right.

The sight that greeted him when he walked back into the bedroom made his heart skip a bit again. Lennie was still lying on his back, his jeans and white boxers round his knees, his body slick with sweat and semen, his cock still partly erect. Jack clambered onto the bed, got Lennie's shoes and pants off and begun wiping off his lover's chest and belly and groin. Lennie's cock twitched as Jack gently handled it. He dried him carefully, kissing his throat, his collarbones, his ribs, his navel. He wanted to learn every inch of that beloved body.

Lennie was almost asleep when Jack finish cleaning him up and tossed the washcloth off to one side. Jack looked lazily at the mess of discarded clothes around the bed, knowing he was going to be disappointed by them in the morning, but right now, he was too drained to worry. He pulled the comforter back, yanking it out from under Lennie, then crawled onto the bed as Lennie opened his arms for him. Sleepy eyes smiled softly at him, warm skin called to him, a broad furry chest made a perfect pillow. Jack snuggled in against him and pulled the comforter up around them.

"I'm sorry Jack, it should have been better," Lennie mumbled sleepily.  
"What do you mean?" Jack answered also sleepily.  
"Should have been slow, and tender, and last longer. I was as rough and clumsy as a teenager, hell, I wasn't that selfish even when I was a teenager." "Selfish? My God Lennie, were you alone just now? I was in as bad a state as you were. We both just needed release, any way we could get it. Next time will be slow and perfect, this time was just fast... and perfect." He pointedly stressed the last word. It was the simple truth. Probably it wasn't the best sex they had in their lives and probably they were going to do a lot better in the future, but for a first time it was memorable.  
"Next time?" Lennie asked, fighting back a yawn.  
"Next time."  
Jack snuggled closer. "What do you want for breakfast, tomorrow?" "You." Lennie answered.   
"Ok."   
They fell asleep, still smiling at each other.


	9. courting lennie 4

Lennie woke up Sunday morning thinking that there was something he had to remember. As he opened his eyes and recognized that he wasn't in his own bedroom, it all came rushing back. He turned his head and saw Jack sleeping beside him. // Oh, god, it was real. // He realized that it was the first time in a very long time that he had waken up not alone. He also realized that that felt amazingly good, and rolled over on his side to watch his lover sleep. A rush of tenderness overwhelmed him as he gazed at the almost childlike innocence that sleep brought to the craggy face.

He thought back to last night and decided that this morning he would make it extra special. It occurred to him that while he had been on the receiving end of more blow jobs than he could count, he'd never given one. He rummaged around in his memory, trying to remember what had felt the best to him, and remembered one in particular. It had lasted almost two hours, the guy doing the work bringing him right to the edge then backing off just at the right time, repeating the process until Lennie was begging him to let him come. He knew he wouldn't have that kind of control just yet, but it was something to strive for.

He looked over at Jack, wondering when he would wake up, and realized that his lover was dreaming again. He smiled and wondered which version of Lennie he was with this time ...

*****

It had been six months since that fateful day up in the attic. Jack and Lennie had worked on the beautiful Victorian house together all through the summer. The main living areas were complete, including the beautiful grand ballroom. Upstairs was still mostly untouched, except for the master bedroom.

But this weekend, the work was being set aside. It was time for a celebration. The ballroom was filled with flowers and even the trees outside displayed their brightest colors against the deep blue of an early October sky. A string quartet played the Pachelbel Canon in D as the small group of friends and family gathered together. A short, stout woman with long flowing brown hair stood before a table. As the quartet finished the last notes of the Canon, she raised her arms, beckoning. Jack swallowed nervously, fidgeted with his tux one last time, and walked slowly in from the side of the room to stand before her. His eyes were glued to Lennie, entering from the other side.

They met in the center and joined hands, smiling nervously at one another, then turned to face the woman. Lennie's friend Annie was a wiccan priestess who specialized in non-traditional weddings. They didn't care that it wasn't "legal;" for them it was about proclaiming their love to the world, and making promises to each other.

Jack barely heard the words as Annie addressed the "congregation," talking about the beauty of two people coming together no matter what the obstacles. Finally, she addressed them.   
"Lennie, do you take this man Jack to be the companion of your days? Do you promise to love him, encourage him in all endeavors, through good times and bad, till death parts your paths?" Lennie looked into his eyes and smiled. "I do." His fingers trembled as he slid the gold ring onto Jack's hand.   
"Jack, do you take this man Lennie to be the companion of your days? Do you promise to love him, encourage him in all endeavors, through good times and bad, till death parts your paths?" He felt like his heart was going to burst as he gazed back into those limpid pools of blue. "I do." Somehow he got the ring onto Lennie's finger.  
"Then by the power of your love for each other, you are married now in the eyes of your family and friends. Let us celebrate!"

The kiss was everything a wedding kiss should be; passionate and tender all at once. Their guests cheered as the quartet played Beethoven's 'Ode to Joy,' and a party broke out around them. The rest of the day was a blur to Jack; he vaguely remembered Lennie shoving some wedding cake into his face, but that was about it. Finally, they managed to clear all the guests out and headed up the stairs to their bedroom.

It would be the first night they had actually spent in the house, in their new bedroom. They walked in, hand in hand, through the beautiful French doors. The bed was a huge old 4-poster, with a king sized mattress. Lennie turned to him, caressing his face. "I couldn't have asked for a more perfect day." He leaned in to answer with a kiss which sparked such passion that they began all but tearing the formal clothes off, hungry to finally be alone in their bed. Lennie dragged him down to the bed, laying on top of the fluffy comforter, his hand finally freeing Jack's aching cock. "Oh, Lennie," he sighed ...

*****

When Jack moaned "Oh, Lennie," in his sleep, it was more than Lennie could take. He bent down and gently kissed him, bringing him out of the dream.

Jack's eyes fluttered open and for a moment he wasn't sure if he wasn't still in the dream. But no, this was real. Lennie was kissing him, one hand floating gently over his already stiff cock. He leaned back and brought the hand up to caress Jack's face.   
"Morning, sleepyhead!"   
Jack smiled up at him. "Hey."   
"You were dreaming about me again."  
Jack blushed. "Yeah."  
"Which one?"  
"The architect in Maine."  
Lennie smirked. "My mother always wanted me to be an architect. Too bad I can't even draw a straight line with a ruler." Jack laughed, then shivered as Lennie's fingers again found his cock. "Oohhh, don't stop." Lennie bent down to kiss him, then slowly worked his way down, neck, chest, and belly, worshiping every inch of skin. Jack gasped as Lennie's lips first touched his cock, a gentle kiss on the head followed by a lick, and finally the flat of the tongue swirling around. "Oh, god, yes."

Lips slid over him, engulfing him, as Lennie chuckled deep in his throat. The tongue slid down his shaft, sliding from side to side, and back up again. Lennie took a deep breath and plunged down the shaft, taking it all into his mouth, thrusting up and down, further and further down each time. Jack's moans told him he was doing something right. Finally he had to come back up for air.   
"Damn, Lennie, you're good. You sure you've never done this before?" "Well, like I said, I had a lot of practice on the receiving end. Trying to remember what I liked." "Can you turn around? I want some too!" Lennie laughed. "69 already? Oh, all right, twist my arm."

He squirmed around, repositioning so that he was turned 180 degrees, then straddled Jack, his cock hanging right over the waiting mouth. "Go for it."

Jack licked his lips, remembering how his LA cop had been afraid of this. He wasn't going to let that happen here. He reached out and traced his fingers along the length of it, marveling at the feel of the soft skin over the hardness underneath. He pulled it toward his mouth and gently sucked the head right in. Lennie sighed and pushed downward, wanting more. "Oh, god, it's been so long ..."

Jack eagerly took all Lennie had to offer, reveling in the thought that he was actually doing this, and enjoying it. He almost lost it for a moment when Lennie resumed work on his cock, but soon they found a rhythm that had the bedsprings squeaking. Jack had had a head start; he realized he was very close to his explosion, but he couldn't talk with his mouth full of Lennie. He reluctantly let go and whispered, "I'm coming Lennie," just moments before he did.

Lennie could feel the contractions taking hold of the body below him as his mouth filled with hot fluid. He had to let some of it dribble down the sides to keep from choking. Finally, Jack lay calm below him, breathing hard. Lennie crawled off and turned around to kiss him.   
"Damn, Lennie."  
Lennie chuckled, his fingers sliding through Jack's chest hair.  
After a few minutes when he had caught his breath, Jack looked at him. "I wasn't done with you." He sat up and pushed Lennie down onto the bed, taking his position between the long legs. Overcome by a bout of silliness, he licked it like a lollipop, teasing with the tip of his tongue, before getting back to serious sucking. This angle was much better, he thought, more control. He brought his hands in, caressing the balls and base of the shaft while his mouth handled the top. It didn't take much longer before Lennie's warning came and he tasted cum for the first time. So many women had refused to swallow his that he was a bit afraid, but to him it tasted like ambrosia and he eagerly licked up every drop.

Finally, he crawled up to lay beside Lennie, his head pillowed on a shoulder, resting a bit before getting up to face the day. He felt contented, happy, in a way he hadn't felt in a very long time.

"So tell me about the dream." Lennie's hands trailed idly through his hair. "Who is this architect and how did he sweep you off your feet?"

Jack smiled and told him the story. How they had been college roommates and best friends over the years, but somehow never put two and two together until that day in the attic. He described the big old Victorian house and how he longed to have somebody special to help him restore it, to maybe make it a real home.

"So what were you two doing when I interrupted?" Lennie asked with a devilish grin.

He was almost afraid to tell Lennie the end of the story - afraid he'd jump to the wrong conclusions. But somehow Jack felt he had to tell Lennie, to bring it all full circle. He looked up into those laughing eyes and smiled. "Celebrating our wedding night in our new home."

Lennie's eyebrows shot up and his mouth hung open. He had NOT been expecting that one. Jack laughed. "Calm down, Lennie. They're a good 6 months ahead of us."

Lennie blinked and managed to shut his mouth. Jack reached up to caress his face. "Seriously, Lennie. That was the other common feature in all the dreams - 'and they lived happily ever after.' But I know that's just a dream."

Lennie heard the hint of sadness in Jack's voice. They had both been burned before; it was hard to believe at this point in their lives that 'happily ever after' was really an option. "Jack, nobody can promise happiness. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. I'm willing if you are."

Jack looked up into the deep blue eyes and saw the hope. "Oh, Lennie ..." he sighed as he buried his face into his lover's shoulder.


	10. christmas dreams

Timeframe: 6 years after "Courting Lennie";   
Christmas 2004.  
As Jack McCoy emerged from the 59th and Lexington subway station, a single snow flake landed between his eyes, suggesting that the city might be in for a white Christmas. The ominous clouds above and the mounting darkness seemed to confirm it. People around him rushed for public transportation or frantically tried to hail cabs.

He stood at the curb, gazing down Lexington Avenue, growing depressed as the snow flakes increased. The thought of spending Christmas all alone was revolting.

As he made the decision to hit every bar on or near Lexington Avenue, Jack noticed a blind man walking toward him, tapping his cane back and forth. The old man was dressed in a camel hair overcoat with a jaunty fur cap and had a serene smile on his face. Apparently knowing exactly where the crosswalk was, he stopped and turned, coming abreast of Jack. He calmly stood on the curb, his head cocked to hear traffic sounds, his cane gauging the distance to the asphalt.

The light changed, but a cab recklessly turned onto 59th Street ahead of the crossing pedestrians. When the blind man didn't attempt to cross, Jack realized that he was probably confused.

"Let me help you cross," Jack said, slipping an arm under his and leading him off the curb.

"Thanks," the blind man said, his baritone voice warm and pleasant. Jack looked up into the dark lenses of his glasses and wondered if the man was totally blind. Through the fabric of his overcoat, Jack could feel an ethereal, erotic warmth.

"No problem," he said, acutely turned on by the body heat of the stranger. He led him across 59th Street and down to 58th.

Jack wanted to start a conversation but couldn't. Yet, he had a strong feeling that the blind man could sense his attraction, that his voice would only confirm it. Highly aroused, Jack stared squarely at him, admiring his skin texture, his lanky build, that disarming smile. He vaguely smelled of Old Spice after-shave with a dash of library, as if he'd spent a lot of time around books. After crossing 58th, he tapped the curb with his cane then stepped up to the sidewalk.

"This is my block. Thanks." He gently pulled away from Jack's grasp and continued toward 57th Street.

Feeling stupid, Jack could only stand there, wishing that he had insisted upon getting him to his destination or had at least found out more about him. Cursing himself, he pursued the man, never considering that he was acting impulsively.

Jack followed him into a drug store near the corner of 57th, where he picked up a bag of medication at the pharmacy. While pretending to browse the next aisle, Jack could hear the pharmacist talking to him as if they were good friends. He moved closer to better overhear their conversation.

" . . . some kind of infection," the blind man was saying.   
"Oh, that's too bad," said the pharmacist. "He was a great-looking dog. Guess it wasn't so bad, though, being as he wasn't with you that long."   
"Oh, I got attached to him, all right, but they insisted on taking him back. I get a German Shepard next week. His name is Captain." That smile again. "Meanwhile, it's solo."   
"Hey, I'll get Tony to walk you to the subway."   
The blind man pushed the bag of medication inside his coat pocket. "I'll be fine, Nick."   
"You sure?" The pharmacist looked out the front window. "It's snowing pretty hard."   
"I'm sure. See you later." The blind man turned to leave.   
"See ya, Lennie." The pharmacist watched him depart, obviously concerned.

"Lennie," Jack whispered to himself, smiling. "It fits him".

As the snow began to collect on the sidewalk, Jack resumed my obsessive little game, following him west on 57th and into a bookstore near Avenue of the Americas. Again, Jack stayed close to him, eager to learn more. He made his way to the rear of the store, where he was warmly greeted by a young woman. She lifted a shopping bag to the counter and placed a pen in his hand. The bag was half full of books. "You have all six?" Lennie asked.

"No, Mister Briscoe, they back-ordered one of them. They just brailled it last month," she explained. "Give me a call next week. Sign here." She placed his hand atop a pad and watched him sign. "I'll put the receipt inside the bag, okay?"

"Thanks." Lennie groped for the bag and turned to leave. "Jesus, they're heavy! I'm glad you didn't have all of them." He waved and tapped his way toward the door and out onto the increasingly treacherous sidewalk.

"Lennie Briscoe," Jack whispered. He kept following closely, wondering where the blind man would lead him. He didn't care, really. He wanted an adventure. Anything but a holiday weekend in the shabby room he'd rented until he could find an apartment. He reviewed various means of starting a conversation but couldn't think of anything that didn't sound inane. He regarded the decreasing visibility and accumulating slush and snow.

"Hey, it looks pretty slick. How about letting me carry that bag for you?" Or better: "Looks like a blizzard. Let me help you. What train do you take? Small world, so do I! Where do you live? Small world, I live across the street! How about dinner?" Jack blurted out a chuckle at the sappiness of his approach techniques and thought he saw the blind man turn toward him slightly. Jack's pulse quickened.

Crossing Seventh Avenue, the Blind man turned north, coming to a sudden halt within half a block of 58th Street. He turned around, a look of confusion on his face. He was obviously lost. He stood near the curb and seemed to mentally retrace his steps.

As Jack made the decision to come to his aid, Lennie swiftly turned again and continued his original route. Agitated, he furiously tapped his cane from side to side and turned his head back and forth to hear. The snow began to come down harder; Jack walked faster.

Just as the cane was about to tap the 58th Street curb, a skidding cab slammed into the rear of another cab in the intersection. The blind man defensively held up his hands, causing him to stumble off the curb, almost falling under the wheels of a delivery truck making a right turn.

Jack was over him quickly. "You okay?" he asked, helping Lennie to his feet. He could see that Lennie's glasses had been crushed and his right eyebrow was cut and bleeding lightly.

"Yeah, I'm okay," he growled, obviously embarrassed and angry. "Please hand me my cane and books." He took a step and tripped over the curb to the sidewalk.

"Would you please settle down and let me help you?" Jack barked, reaching for the cane. Then he looked around for the books but all he could see was the ripped bag rushing toward a gutter.

"Damn!" Lennie yelled, holding his knee in pain. Jack placed the cane in his palm. "Here. Now hold on while I try to fish your books out."

As Jack attempted to locate Lennie's books in the dark water, another truck sped around the corner, showering him with slush. Feeling the cold wetness permeating his coat, he gave up. "I'm sorry, the books must have gone into the drain."

"Sonofabitch!" Lennie spat.

"Did you hurt your knee?" Jack asked, inspecting his torn trousers, then glancing up into his eyes. They were a stunning blue and looked free of disease. "Where do you live? I'll get you home."  
"Just get me to the subway station." Lennie answered, struggling to get up.   
Taking out a handkerchief, Jack dabbed at Lennie's face. "You cut your eyebrow."   
"Is it bleeding?"   
"Not badly. Press this against it for a couple of minutes."   
Lennie took the handkerchief Jack placed in his hand.   
Jack's teeth began to chatter as the cold wetness reached his bare skin. "So where is this subway station?"   
"Near Broadway and Fifty-ninth. I thought that's where I was."   
"Not quite." Jack led Lennie toward Eighth Avenue, feeling the same warmth from the contact as before. It permeated his body, helping him to tolerate the icy wetness on his back.   
"You sure the books went into the sewer?" Lennie asked with a pained expression.   
"I'm sure." Jack studied his beautiful eyes. "Sorry. How much did they cost you?"   
"They weren't mine." He limped slightly and winced as he rubbed his knee. "I just picked them up for the Lighthouse. I work there part-time."   
"Oh." Okay, smart ass, think of something. "Uhh . . . you'd better have your wife take care of that cut as soon as you get home."   
"I don't have a wife." He almost slipped and yelped at the pain in his knee. "I'm divorced . . . and she didn't divorce me after I went blind."   
Jack chuckled. "I wasn't going to ask that."   
"Well, most people do." Lennie turned to Jack and smiled like he'd done back at Park Avenue.   
"Then have your roommate take a look at it. Your knee looks pretty much banged up, too."   
"No roommates."   
"Alone on Christmas Eve?" Jack felt a rush of expectancy.   
"Christmas means nothing to me." He didn't sound bitter, so Jack assumed that he was either agnostic, Jewish or an atheist. He took a deep breath and blurted: "Well, I don't have any plans, so why don't I take you to your place and make sure your eye and knee are taken care of?"   
Lennie cocked his head, obviously wishing he could see Jack's face. A look of skepticism swept over him. "Nah, I can take care of myself."   
"If I'd been a mugger, I wouldn't have"   
"Please don't be offended," he quickly said. "I don't mistrust you. I just want to be alone, okay?"   
Jack was crestfallen.   
"Hey, I really appreciate your helping me," he added. "As a matter of fact, if you'll give me your card, I'll call you and take you out to dinner next week. Okay?"   
Jack quickly searched for a pen and a piece of paper to sign in the number of his Cell phone, but came up empty.   
"Tell me the number then. I'll remember it."   
Jack felt it was useless, but it recited his phone number anyway, loud and clear, hoping fiercely that Lennie would use it, soon.   
They reached the subway entrance, and Jack saw that the stairway was heavily coated with snow. "Wait a minute," he cautioned. "Let me get in front of you."   
With one hand on his shoulder and the other on the rail, Lennie carefully followed Jack down the stairs into the nearly deserted station.   
"You have a token?" Jack asked.   
Lennie grinned. "Yeah. Just get me to the turnstile."   
Jack led him to the turnstile and reluctantly let go of his arm, then watched him walk toward the platform.   
"Thanks," Lennie called back.   
"But what if you start bleeding again?"   
He shook his head and playfully gestured for Jack to go away, then he disappeared around a corner.

Jack slowly turned and urged himself to leave the station, eventually glancing up at a clerk inside the change booth. Unable to fight the powerful urge, he purchased tokens and followed the blind man to the platform. Lennie emerged from the subway at a station near the George Washington Bridge and walked into an adjacent bus terminal, where a woman led him to a waiting bus. Jack quickly bought a ticket and boarded the bus just seconds before it departed. Locating Lennie in the mid-section of the bus, Jack walked past him and sat near the rear. He had no idea where they were headed , so he was relieved when Lennie pulled the cord just after they got off the bridge in New Jersey. After the bus slid to a stop, the driver escorted Lennie off the bus. Jack slipped out after them and pretended to head for his destination.

"Hey, buddy!"   
Jack turned to find the driver glaring at him. "How about helping this man get to his apartment?"   
"Don't worry, driver," said Lennie, chuckling. "He was about to do just that."   
The driver gave them both a puzzled look then shook his head and moved on.   
"You knew all along," Jack said, relieved.   
"It's your cologne."   
"You've got a sensitive honker."

Lennie stomped a foot into the snow, testing the depth. "I suppose you'll have to spend the night, huh?"   
"I'll leave after I get you home and doctored up," Jack assured him.   
"Oh, I think I might have room for you. It's the least I can do." He held out his elbow. "I've been feeling guilty for the last half-hour for brushing you off."

The hardening snow crunched underneath their feet as Jack led Lennie down the sidewalk. He became increasingly aroused and breathless over his good fortune.

Lennie's apartment was a small, second-story walk-up. The living room consisted of a bedspread-clad couch, two mismatched upholstered chairs, a maple coffee table, and a large, television set. There were Metropolitan Opera and New York Philharmonic posters adorning the walls but very little else to decorate them. The carpeting was a faded gold and badly worn. The small kitchen was separated from the living room by a bar with two stools. It had fairly new appliances and fixtures and was well-stocked with hanging utensils, spices and cookbooks, which Jack assumed were in braille.

Lennie closed and locked the door. "Have a seat and I'll make you a drink."   
"That sounds great," Jack said, his teeth clattering from the chill of his still-wet overcoat. "Do you have a robe I could wear?"   
Lennie seemed to hesitate, then hung his cane on a hook near the door.  
"Uhh . . . I don't think so. I usually go nude around the house." He gestured toward the radiator under a window overlooking the street below. "It's usually so damned hot in this place . . . . Why?"   
"I got soaked when I went diving for your books."

Lennie reached for Jack and felt his coat. "Holy shit! You're gonna catch pneumonia!" He unbuttoned the coat. "Get out of this and take a hot shower. Hang the wet stuff on the bathroom door." With a concerned expression, he reached for the back of a bar stool to get his direction set. "I'll get you a fresh towel, then I'll make that drink. What's your poison?" He confidently walked into the hallway.

"Scotch . . . or whatever you're having." Jack followed him into the small bedroom, which consisted of an unmade double bed, a small dresser and a chest of drawers. The room was otherwise neat and clean; Jack was amazed that a blind man could keep an apartment in such good shape.

Lennie took off his coat and hung it inside a closet, pulling out the bag of medication. "I don't drink, but I have a little brandy. My girl friend . . . she drinks brandy."   
Jack frowned. "Girlfriend?"   
"She lives southwest of here. She's serious, but I'm not." Lennie pulled a towel out of a chest of drawers and placed it on top of the sink in the tidy bathroom. He reached inside the bag and pulled out a box containing a bottle of insulin. "I gotta put this in the refrigerator... She would really like for me to walk down the aisle, but I just don't want to get that involved." He turned and smiled. "Damned good sex, though. She went to Vermont to see her folks this Christmas, otherwise, she'd be here."

Jack took off his wet clothes and watched Lennie walk into the kitchen. "You meet her after you lost your sight?"   
"Yeah," he yelled back.   
"Then you don't even know what she looks like," Jack ventured in a raised voice, hanging up his clothes on the door.   
"Sure I do! I'll show you later how I see a face!"

Jack shrugged and jumped into the shower. The hot water was invigorating and led to an erection.

After drying off, Jack draped the towel around his shoulders and walked into the living room. The television was on and the news anchor was telling about a brazen, bloody ambush near Falluja. Jack's cock was still erect and aching; he got a perverse thrill over "exposing" himself to a blind man.

Lennie was in the kitchen, preparing dinner. He was listening to the news, a grim expression on his face. He turned to Jack. "Feel better?"   
"A hundred percent better." Jack sat at the bar and watched him, elated that he was now bare-chested and dressed in running shorts. Without the hat, Jack could see that his hair was a lot more grey than dark and was cut short. He had some pounds to spare around the waist but all in all he looked muscular, with grey chest hair and thick, hairy arms.

"You going to feed me?" Jack asked, leaning over to inspect his crotch bulge, which was ample.   
"Hope you're hungry." He smiled and Jack's stomach felt like he had fallen off a cliff.   
"If you only knew how hungry."   
Lennie's brow furrowed slightly, then he shrugged. "You like Beef Stroganoff?"   
"Hey, fancy."   
"You kidding? It's only sauteed onion, ground beef and sour cream over noodles."   
"Sounds great," Jack said, spotting his drink and picking it up. "I hate to drink in front of you."

He shrugged again. "Doesn't bother me. I was a heavy drinker before I lost my sight to diabetes. After I was diagnosed, I ignored what the doctor said and kept on drinking." He sighed. "So I finally paid the price and wised up."   
"That's too bad," Jack mumbled.   
"I lost my wife and two kids to the alcohol, too." His eyes misted over. "I guess that was the biggest loss."   
"Jesus," Jack reacted. "Do they know you're blind?"   
"I lost track of them over ten years ago. Last I heard, she'd moved to California to live with her mother. She got the house, car, custody and everything." He sighed deeply and busied himself with chopping onions and browning the meat.   
Jack inspected his injured eyebrow. "I'll take care of your eye and knee when you reach a stopping point."   
"After we eat." He smiled again, probably pushing painful memories back into the recesses of his mind. "I'll take a shower and then you can operate."

Blood surged into Jack's cock and a lump formed in his throat. "You got it." He turned and noticed that the drapes were open.

"Oh, shit!" Jack quickly crouched and crawled to the drapes to close them. Lennie chuckled. "What's the matter? The drapes? What, are you nude?"   
"Yeah. Hope your neighbors didn't see me."   
"Fuck 'em," he assured. "I forget they're open sometimes. When I first moved here, there was practically nothing across the street, and you could see the whole bridge." He seemed to dwell on memories of better times. "You can only see half of it now, but it's still impressive, isn't it?" Jack peeked out through the drapes and shuddered at the ghostly apparition enshrouded in heavily falling snow.

"Describe it to me," Lennie urged.   
"Looks eerie now, like a huge insect crawling through fog," Jack offered.   
"I think I miss that the most. All the many moods of old George Washington." His expression turned melancholy. "It looked different every time I looked out the window."   
Jack returned to the bar stool and watched him finish browning and setting aside the ground beef, replacing it in the skillet with the onions. Deftly, he threw a handful of noodles into a pot of boiling water.

"Why did you follow me home?" Lennie asked at length, catching Jack off guard.   
Jack sipped his drink, studying Lennie, wondering why he was playing games. "It's not obvious?"   
"Oh, it's obvious all right." He rolled up those baby blues and Jack's heart thumped.   
"Is it?" Jack toyed, joining the game.   
"It's obvious that it's either pity or compassion. A little of both, maybe."   
Jack was confused. "Pardon?"   
"What do you get out of it, a pass to heaven, good karma? Hell, I don't even know your name. What's your name?"   
"Jack. Jack McCoy … Get out of it?" Jack suddenly realized that he had terribly misjudged Lennie. "I guess I have no idea what you're talking about."

Lennie mixed the meat, onions and sour cream. "You know, sometimes traumatic changes in a man's life can really change the way he thinks. My whole concept of life changed. It had to. I never thought of things like kindness or concern for my fellow man. Now, I'm very conscious of things like that. Except for you, no one has ever gone out of their way like you have." He chuckled, almost tearfully. "I'm really moved by your compassion, man, but I just can't tolerate pity. Is that what you felt when you saw me fall off the curb?"

Jack was flabbergasted and felt his cock shrivel.   
"Some people are hooked on pity," Lennie pointed out.   
Jack's vocal cords seemed frozen.   
"Hello?"   
"Uhh . . ."   
"Jack?" Lennie appeared concerned and walked around to the bar stool, feeling Jack's face with his hands. "You okay?"   
His touch was magical; his chemistry was capable of driving Jack into a frenzy. Part of him wanted to be totally honest, but the other part wanted to hold back and see if he could seduce him.   
"I, uhh . . ."

"This is how I see." His hands gently and innocently discovered Jack's face, shoulders and chest. "Hey, You've got what they called as Aristocratic face... Feels good looking... In a rough kind of way... Guessed you younger from your voice... How old are you, around 50?"

"Yeah," Jack choked, blushing, breathless. "Wrong side of 50"   
"Still younger than me, lad. I'll be 61 next year. Some days I feel like 80..."

Jack swallowed hard, struggling not to kiss him. He closed his eyes and begged himself not to fuck up. It was imperative that he make a lasting impression. With that in mind, he decided to be honest. "You were way off base."

Lennie blinked and slowly lowered his arms.   
"I don't pity you … and I'm not a saint."   
"Then … why?"   
"I've never ever been so turned on by a man in my life," Jack said, his voice dry and almost cracking with dread.

Lennie considered this, finally making his way back to the stove. "Oh Boy, I must be slipping. But you just don't sound gay. Fuck, I never thought"   
"I'm sorry," Jack said sincerely. "I didn't mean to lead you on. Had you been able to really see me, there'd've been no question in your mind." The stunned look on Lennie's face made Jack wish that he'd held back.   
"What would I've seen?"   
"Cow eyes, from the moment I first laid them on you."   
Suddenly, Lennie burst out laughing.   
"Cow eyes?"   
"What's so funny?" His laugh was incongruous; Jack felt frustrated and irritated.   
"Here I am, old, blind threadbare. . . and you've got the hots for me?" He continued laughing heartily.   
"Maybe I'd better leave," Jack suggested coolly.   
"God, don't leave! It's just getting good!" Lennie reached for the bottle of Scotch, groping for Jack's glass, pouring another splash. "Don't get pissed, okay? Hell, let me catch my breath, will you?" He poured the food into a casserole dish and placed it inside the oven, turning the dial down low.

"It's not just sex," Jack pointed out.   
Lennie poured himself a glass of milk and placed it on the bar. "Ah, a combination of eros and pathos, right?" He felt his way around the corner and sat next to Jack. "Don't mind me. Go on."   
Jack felt encouraged by his mildly bizarre reaction. "I don't know what happened to me. It's never happened before. I never . . . followed anyone like that before."

Lennie smiled and seemed eager to hear more.

"When I first touched your arm, it was like a bolt of lightning hit me."   
Lennie reared back dramatically, then smiled. "Sorry."   
"I'm obsessed with you . . . your eyes, smile, voice, smell . . . ." Jack shuddered. "Your overall chemistry . . . ." His expression made Jack chuckle. "I assume you've never been propositioned by a man before."

Lennie guffawed. "You kidding? I was a marine captain with twenty inch arms and a fat dick. I got propositioned like you wouldn't believe." Instantly, Jack's cock got hard again.   
"Anyone succeed?"   
"That's a loaded question," he said, his eyes sparkling mischievously, his grin answering the question. "But you didn't come here just to give me a blow job, did you?"

"No," Jack said simply, honestly. Of course, he wanted to be invited back. Lennie wasn't the type of man you just serviced and walked away from. This was the kind of man you never forget. The taste of him would haunt you, make you addicted. Somehow, Jack knew that.

Lennie took a sip from his glass and seemed to hesitate. "When I was in the marines, I had this sexual problem with the effects of alcohol. Sort of Satyriasis, if you want to call it that way.. To answer your question, yeah, I got my dick sucked by a few guys, but I never looked for it. And, though I was never a religious person, I felt bad about it. It just didn't seem right. I guess it's some macho thing."

Jack felt compelled to change the subject. "What's it like to be blind?"   
He shook his head in amazement.   
"Dumb question," Jack groaned.   
"On the contrary." Lennie leaned back against the bar, absently exposing his bulge, inflaming Jack's senses. "It's like being tied up and blindfolded at first. Tied up because of this fear you have of falling and hurting yourself. You're frozen with fear. And just when you can make it around your apartment, you know you have to tackle the street." He seemed to shudder. "The roughest day of my life was when I went to the Lighthouse for the first time by myself. I sat for two days here, picturing where the bus stop was, what the bus terminal looked like inside. It had been over two years since I'd taken public transportation in New York." He smiled proudly. "Then I went out early one morning and just did it. And I did it again the next morning and the next." He chuckled. "Man, was I bruised and battered after the first week." He abruptly turned to me. "It hasn't been that long, you know. A little over a year, really."

"No kidding," Jack said, impressed. "And you learned braille and everything."   
"I got my first dog about a month ago, but it got sick and they took it back."   
"I overheard that in the drug store."   
"Oh, yeah." He patted Jack's shoulder. "Yeah, you were there, weren't you? So you know that I'm getting a new dog next week."   
Jack looked into the kitchen and saw a dog dish in the corner. "What were you like before you went blind?"   
"You wouldn't have liked me. A lot of people didn't."   
Jack couldn't picture it.   
"I was a jock, too, back in high school and in the marines. Always playing ball with the guys. I worked hard, made pretty good money in insurance, burned the candle at both ends. I was a Don Juan, arrogant as hell. I think I fucked every secretary in my company. Before that, I was a marine In Nam. I was wounded twice over the course of the war. Boxed, too. I was a welterweight. Came close to taking national until this fucking gorilla from Detroit broke my jaw."

They both laughed.   
"After the war, I came back and got my degree at Princeton. Where did you go to school?"

"Chicago. Tried Law School but didn't work, so I turned to Business. I'm a manager and I'm in NY to organize a merger between two companies."

Lennie hesitated. "So when did you turn gay?"   
Memories came rushing back into Jack's head. It never occurred to him to sift through those first memories of his homosexual life. "This fellow jock and I. He was fifteen and I was sixteen. We were driving around one summer night. We were on this double date and both girls were on the rag. We got so frustrated that we drove out into the country and had at it. I'd played around before, but this was the first time I went all the way."

Lennie seemed to squirm slightly, so Jack opted for a diversion. "So how long were you married?"

A sadness crept over Lennie's face. "About fifteen years. I got married at thirty. We had two kids . . . two boys."   
"I'm sorry. Wrong subject," Jack said, ready to change the subject again.   
"No, that's okay." Lennie groaned and sighed. "I was drinking pretty heavily then. One day I came home and she'd moved out, filed for divorce. Of course, I was fucking everyone and she found out."

Jack didn't know what to say to comfort him.   
"I have to give myself a shot and eat something." Lennie got off the stool and walked back to the kitchen.   
"Wait a minute," Jack said, suddenly wondering how a blind man could extract insulin from a bottle. "How . . . ?"   
He grinned smugly and opened the refrigerator. "Everyone asks me that."

Jack looked inside and saw two drinking glasses filled with capped syringes. "My girlfriend fills them for me and puts them in the refrigerator. The textured glass has the morning shots and the slick glass has the night shots." Jack suddenly felt an intense jealousy of Lennie's girlfriend.

Lennie took out a syringe from the slick glass and placed it on the counter. "Then I get the only alcohol they'll let me have." He reached into a cabinet above and pulled down a bottle of rubbing alcohol and a bag of cotton balls.   
Jack watched as Lennie moistened a ball and took the cap off the syringe. He pinched a layer of fat on his abdomen and wiped it with the ball, finally injecting the spot.

It was easy to fantasize learning to give him shots, to take care of him. It was a dangerous fantasy, but one that Jack couldn't resist. Lennie was acutely lovable.

They ate the Stroganoff and a salad at the bar, then Lennie went into the bathroom to shower. Jack poured himself a brandy and sat on the couch, wishing that he had enough guts to sneak into the back and watch him shower. Certain that Lennie would sense his presence, Jack decided to exercise decorum and hoped that it paid off.

He parted the drapes, looked out at the street and beyond. The bridge was sparkling white, caked heavily with snow. No moving cars were in sight. The snow on the street below was now quite deep and Jack realized (hoped?) that he would be snowed in for the whole holiday with Lennie. He wanted it to be a pleasant experience for Lennie. He had no intention of pawing him and turning him off. He wanted to turn him on, to be invited back. Hell, he wanted to be his lover already!

As Jack sat watching a Christmas show on television and sipping the brandy, Lennie walked into the living room. He was nude and exhibited a flaccid but already impressive penis surrounded by an abundance of soft, grey and brown hair. Jack had to look for something else in order to fall out of the mesmerizing sight, so he turned his attention to Lennie's war wounds. He found a circular scar on his left shoulder and a larger jagged one on his right side. Jack assumed that the larger scar was from shrapnel.

As Lennie went into the kitchen and made coffee, Jack shuddered at the intimacy and promise of the moment.   
"I smell brandy. You want coffee to go with that?" He lowered his head so that Jack could see his face underneath the kitchen cabinets. His smile was brilliant, his hair frizzy. He looked cute.   
"Please." And then Jack could smell him, too. He'd splashed on something very exotic and masculine. Did he want to encourage his seduction? Jack wondered.

Lennie poured two mugs of coffee and brought them to the coffee table, navigating by rote the space between the nearest chair and the couch. "If you want cream or sugar, you'll have to help yourself."   
"Black's fine," Jack said, giddy that Lennie was sitting down next to him. He sucked in all the air around him, hungry for Lennie's essence. Jack's cock smarted from all the surges of blood.   
Lennie toasted with his coffee. "Merry Christmas."

Jack chuckled, amazed at how his disastrous holiday weekend had turned into the most memorable event of his life.   
"Merry Christmas." He lifted his mug and clicked it against Lennie's. "Here's hoping that the upcoming year will . . . will bring you everything you ever wanted, Lennie Briscoe"  
Lennie nodded. "And the same to you, Jack McCoy."

Jack noticed the abrasion on Lennie's knee and remembered his offer.   
"If you'll direct me to your hydrogen peroxide, I'll take care of my nursing duties."   
"That's okay," he said, waving his hand.   
"No, you might get it infected." Jack jumped up and went into the bathroom.   
"Is it in the bathroom?"   
"Yeah. In the medicine cabinet. There're some Q-tips there too."

Jack found both and brought them to the coffee table, then went into the kitchen to fetch a saucer.   
"Hey, I just thought of something," Lennie said, absently picking at his bruised knee. "I have some wrapped gifts that I never opened. My Girlfriend brought them my last birthday and we never got around to opening them." He chuckled lecherously. "She fucked my brains out that night." The pang of jealously was like a knife penetrating Jack's stomach.   
"That good, huh?" Jack commented icily.   
"Unbelievable."   
Jack poured some peroxide into the saucer and dipped a Q-tip into it, then gently cradled Lennie's face with a shaking hand.   
"You're hands are cold," the patient pointed out.   
"Warm heart," Jack countered, dabbing at the cut over Lennie's eye. Jack looked into his eyes and felt an ever-increasing fondness for him. The effect of man on him was awesome; the mounting hunger he felt was agonizing. Being that near to Lennie and not being able to touch him was tortuous … deliciously so. Jack felt that he could actually taste his skin as he fantasized noisily sucking his nipples.

"Ouch!" Lennie protested as the wound fizzed.   
"You baby," Jack chided, dipping another swab and cleaning his knee wound.   
"Ouch!" he repeated, exaggerating the pain.   
"Okay, you'll live," Jack assured him.

"I'll get the packages," Lennie said, bending to get up. Jack pushed him back, watching his hand become enveloped in soft, salt and pepper chest hair. "No, let it dry first." He noticed what seemed like a slight swelling in Lennie's cock and decided to be a little bolder. "I'm curious. What was your reaction to those experiences with other men?"   
Lennie smiled. "Are you about to try to seduce me now?"   
"No," Jack said defensively. "I'm afraid that if I seduce you, I'll end up leaving with just that. I want more."   
"How do you know that?"   
"That I want more?" Jack was confused again.   
"No." Lennie chuckled. "That's obvious. How do you know you'd leave with just that?"   
"It depends on your reaction, doesn't it? Do you know what your reaction would be?"   
"No," he said flatly. "I've never had sober sex with a man."   
"My wild and impetuous self wants to drain you dry, damn the consequences. Then another part of me wants to leave here with your respect, whatever it takes." Jack tried to gauge his impressions. "It's very important that I be invited back."   
Lennie shrugged. "I never considered what my reaction might be. When it happened back in the marines, I felt unclean the next day . . . like I was infected."   
"You were afraid you'd turn gay?"

He considered that. "Yeah, sort of." He crossed his legs atop the coffee table and crossed his arms behind his head. "Of course, that was then. Now I know that sexuality isn't as simple as it seemed then. Then, you were either queer or straight. Nothing in between. Sure, there were people who called themselves bisexual, but they were queer to me." He scratched his knee, but Jack tapped his hand away. "Someone, I don't remember who, said something that really stopped me in my tracks. It was something like, 'Too many people look at sex as either black or white, when in fact it's like the entire color spectrum.' It's like, if a straight man is red and a gay man is blue, then who is yellow? Green? Purple?"

Jack was astounded at this burst of wisdom. "Now that's eloquent."   
"What I'm saying is that I have no idea where I fit in the spectrum." He seemed to squirm again and placed his feet on the floor, taking a sip of his coffee. "But then, I'm really not that interested in finding out. The question isn't pressing, you know? If you suddenly went down on me, maybe I'd be so unglued that I'd tell you to stop and then kick you out. But then, maybe I'd like it and fuck your brains out, who knows. I just can't visualize it in my head."

Jack digested what he said, finally mumbling, "It's like Russian roulette."

"Hey, let's open some presents and have a real Christmas, okay?" Lennie jumped up and made his way to a hall closet. He opened the door and knelt, rummaging through several items on the floor. The telephone rang and Jack got up to answer it for him. "Want me to get that?"

"Oh, shit no!" He sprang up and rushed to the kitchen. "It may be my girlfriend." He answered the wall phone. "Hello?"   
Jack returned to the couch.

"Well, Merry Christmas to you, sweetheart."

Enraged with jealousy, Jack quietly walked back toward the kitchen. As his conversation with her became more quiet and intimate, Jack got closer, inviting the pain. Lennie absently played with his cock until it had become semi-erect. Jack quietly knelt, three feet away.   
"No, why do you think that?" His cock was almost totally engorged, luring Jack closer. "No one's here, baby. I'm just sitting here thinking of you."   
Lennie's cock became hard and dark red. Jack's mouth filled with saliva.   
"I can't wait either, babe. Oh, shit, I'm as hard as a rock." Hating her, Jack lost all control and locked his arms around Lennie's thighs, immediately swallowing his cock. Lennie's free hand pushed at Jack, trying to dislodge him, but quickly retracted as he lightly bit down on his cock head.

"Huh? Nothing. I just lost my balance a little."

Jack released his hold on Lennie's legs and made love to his cock like he'd never done with any other man. It was like drinking from a diamond and emerald-encrusted chalice.   
"Sure, I'm breathing heavily. You do that to me, sweetheart."  
Massaging his balls, Jack rejoiced as his legs spread further apart, welcoming more.   
"Jacking off? Why do you think that?"   
Jack sucked both testicles into his mouth, then turned on the floor until his nose was in the crack of Lennie's ass.   
"Oh, shit," Lennie mumbled. "Uhh . . . Oh, I dropped some food on the floor." Having never had the desire with anyone else, Jack ventured into exotic territory, sending his tongue to search for Lennie's sphincter, finally finding it shower-clean and willing to be probed.   
"A piece of bread, I think." The timbre of Lennie's voice had altered. He sounded somewhat hoarse.   
Jack's tongue fluttered over Lennie's sphincter, glided down around his scrotum, slavered up his shank and finally swirled around his broad head. With throat completely dilated, Jack swooped down to Lennie's pubic hair, causing his feet to dance upon the tile floor. Sliding back down to his balls, Jack took both inside his mouth and looked up at his face. He focused upon Lennie's face, then his cock, then his face as he slipped his thumb into his anus. Suddenly Lennie's face turned bright red and he grunted. A streamer of semen shot out of his cock and into Jack's hair. Another spurt came, but Jack captured it with his mouth. In the throes of ecstasy, he drank Lennie's essence and spilled his seed onto the floor at Lennie's feet.

"Nothing, babe. Just cleared my throat."   
Jack sat back and marveled at the sight of Lennie's spread legs and quickly shrinking cock. A pearl of semen slipped out of his slit and soon became a two inch rivulet, which Jack captured with his tongue just as it began to fall.

And then Jack looked up at Lennie's disturbed expression and realized that he would indeed leave with only a memory and the aftertaste of Lennie's seed in his sinuses. He got up and quietly walked into the bathroom, quickly getting into his semi-dry clothes. As he returned to the living room, Lennie was sitting on the adjacent carpeting, yawning as his girlfriend talked. Acutely depressed, Jack let himself out and slowly walked down to the apartment entrance. The snow was even deeper than he had thought; he couldn't distinguish the sidewalk from the street. Knowing it was insane, but unwilling to face Lennie's adverse reaction, Jack struggled down the sidewalk through foot-deep snow. Not ten feet away, his socks were already soaked and his feet seemed like they were freezing. A window opened above and Lennie stuck his head out.

"Where in the holy hell do you think you're going?"   
Jack looked around and held out his arms in desperation. "Beats the shit out of me."   
"Then how about coming back and opening your goddamn present." He closed the window.   
Feeling childish and stupid, Jack meekly returned to the apartment. Lennie was sitting on the couch.   
"I was afraid . . . " Jack began.   
"You can't read me. Nobody can read me." Lennie nodded toward the kitchen. "I almost slipped and fell on your . . . your . . . mess in there."   
"I'll clean it up," Jack said, struggling to fathom him. He hung his clothes in the closet and returned to the kitchen, where he mopped up the semen with a paper towel.   
"Ready?" Lennie asked, holding a package in his lap.   
"Sure," Jack said, sitting next to him. He inspected the package on the coffee table in front of me. "This mine?"   
"Yeah. You first." A small smile formed on his lips.   
"Okay." Jack opened the gift. "A wallet." He held it up for Lennie to feel. He felt the wallet, then opened his present. "Don't tell me. Let me guess."   
Jack could see that it was a three-jar package of gourmet jams, but there was no way he could know.   
"Okay, what is it?"   
"Looks like some pretty fancy jams."   
"Good, 'cause we don't have a fucking thing for breakfast except bagels." His exquisite smile returned. "You're crazy, you know?"   
Jack shook his head, amazed at himself. "Guilty. I've never acted like this before, though."   
"Maybe you did the right thing." Lennie grinned at Jack, as if he knew that the statement would confound him. "It had to come out of left field. Maybe you sensed that in me."   
Jack shrugged, stupefied.   
"You realize, of course, that we can't be sure of it without some other tests." Lennie grinned, spreading his legs and showing Jack his new erection.

 

Jack felt warm, relaxed and safe. He could not decide if he was awake or sleeping, and for the moment he could not care less. He felt very good.

As he woke up a little more, he was aware of a hand rubbing gentle circles on his stomach, sending pleasant flutters through him. That was nice. He could feel something warm pressed up against his ass and snuggled against it. Gradually he came out of his pleasant haze and realized what the warm thing behind him was. And that was even nicer.  
The hand on his stomach began moving slightly lower, rubbing and tickling all the way down to his groin.

"Merry Christmas, Lennie. Looking for something?" Jack asked teasingly, turning onto his back and looking at Lennie.

"Merry Christmas to you too, Jack. And yes, I was looking for my Christmas gift" Lennie chuckled in answer, closing his hand around Jack's hard cock. "Looks like Santa already delivered it."  
"Yeah, but I'm afraid he's forgotten to wrap it up"  
"Details, details..."  
Lennie looked down at Jack's face and smiled. "I know that Mona Lisa smile of yours."  
"Really?"  
"Yeah. You get it when you wake up from one of your dreams... This one must have been pleasant..."  
Jack grinned, blushing slightly.  
Lennie laughed. "Tell me about it."  
Jack reached up to kiss Lennie. "It was Christmas, and I was all alone in this city. And you were a very independent blind man. We met accidentally and I felt in love with you at the first sight. Initially you seemed very straight, but you took me home anyway and I had the feeling you were going to keep me... And I was falling so hard and so fast for you it was breathtaking..."

Lennie's smile and expression turned dreaming too and he had to swallow a couple of time before finding his voice.  
"I'm flattered..." he said with conviction. "Six years together and you're still dreaming of me like that..."  
"I think I'll keep dreaming of you like that whether we've been together sixteen years or sixty ... And when I wake up and you're here with me, it's better than any dream..."  
"Better?"  
Jack nodded and went for another kiss. "Do you have to ask?"  
"Nope... But I can't help wonder how I can compete with those dreams of yours."  
"How can they compete with a real, live, warm you in my arms?" Jack's smile became naughty. "Or even better, inside me.”

He pulled Lennie down on top of him, locking their lips together in a passionate kiss. Lennie eagerly responded, sliding one hand into the thick silver hair as Jack's arms wrapped around his back. Life was so good, so sweet. For the first time in their six years together, they were able to celebrate Christmas like this. Now that Lennie was retired from the NYPD, they could take all the time they wanted.

Jack rolled them over so that he was on top and began leaving a trail of kisses across Lennie's face and neck, enjoying the feel of the rough stubble. This was when it really came home to him how special their love was. He worked his way down Lennie's chest, burying his fingers in the soft gray curls as his lips sought out the sensitive nipples. He loved watching Lennie squirm beneath his touch, his cock hard and twitching. Finally he took it into his mouth, eliciting a deep groan from his lover, his partner, his life.

He sucked until he couldn't stand waiting any longer. Letting go, he crawled back up to lay beside Lennie. "Take me, Lennie. Make love to me. I want you so bad …"

Lennie didn't have to be told twice. He remembered how nervous they both had been all those years ago when they first tried this. Jack's dreams had brought them together, but neither of them knew much about gay sex. There had been some awkward moments, but something had made them both press on and figure out the mechanics. Now he couldn't imagine his life without Jack by his side and in his bed. He had been so afraid of retirement, of being alone. Now it seemed like the best thing that had ever happened to him. For once to not have to crawl out of a warm bed on the holiday morning was the best present he could wish for – as long as Jack was there with him!

Now it was Jack's turn to squirm under his touch as he gently prepared his lover. When he was good and relaxed, Lennie applied the lube to himself and moved into position, lifting Jack's long legs onto his shoulders. Their hands clasped as he pushed in, reveling in the warmth of the tight space. Slowly, they began moving together, letting the pressure gradually build. Lennie's hands feathered lightly over Jack's erection, not enough to bring him off, just enhancing the pleasure generated inside his body. Long and slow, they made love that Christmas morning, until finally they couldn't last a minute longer. When the explosion came, it was like the heat inside Jack's body rolled over them, fusing their bodies and souls together forever.

They lay side by side for a good long while, not speaking, just drinking in each other's nearness. Through the window they could see that it had started snowing outside. Lennie sighed happily. "Got my Christmas dream. Snow outside, and me inside with you. Can't think of a better way to spend the holiday …"

Jack just sighed and snuggled closer, enjoying his Christmas dream come true.


	11. cellblock tango

CELL BLOCK TANGO

Fandom: Law and Order

Rating: NC-17 (heavy NC17... )

Pairings: Jack/Lennie

Summary: Jack does it again  
Author's Notes: this is set in the same universe  
of Many Lives and Courting Lennie (but it's not  
necessary to read them to understand this)  
Beta: LavenderJade (thanks as always)  
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and  
situations created and owned by Wolf Production, NBC and what not  
No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

 

Cell Block tango.

 

The battered white bus pulled into the gates of the penitentiary.

It had taken several hours to get to this point,  
passing through miles of unused swamp land and  
finally arriving in the middle of nowhere. John  
James McCoy, an ordinary man in his mid-fifties,  
was on that bus. He stared thru the wire grate  
covering the window beside him. He felt queasy,  
his pulse was rapid, and his palms were sweaty.

Looking up, he saw many small towers a few  
stories high. Each tower had a railed mezzanine  
and an armed guard. He saw double fences that  
stood at least 12 feet high, topped with curling  
strands of barbed wire. All that he saw only reinforced his fears.

The bus moved forward and the gates behind it  
were shut. The prisoner transport bus was now in  
an area between two sets of gates. Several  
minutes passed and the bus passed through, into  
the prison that would now serve as Jack’s home.

A few drops of sweat rolled down Jack’s  
forehead. Holding up his cuffed hands, he  
quickly wiped it away before it could run down  
his face and be mistaken for tears. Indeed, Jack  
felt very much like crying, but tears were a weakness he couldn’t afford.

Less then 90 days ago, Jack McCoy had been  
free. As a guard ordered ‘all out’, Jack’s  
thoughts flashed back to the act that had put him  
here. As his mind replayed the scenes that had  
led up to this, he stumbled. He had forgotten the  
leg irons that were clamped to his ankles.

He was 6th in a line of 9 new inmates being led  
into a huge double door. As the march suddenly  
halted, Jack stumbled again, almost falling into the man a head of him.

Again Jack looked around. Guards began unlocking  
the handcuffs and leg irons. Jack waited his  
turn. As he took in the size of the guards and  
the size of the other prisoners he felt even more  
vulnerable and smaller. He felt more sweat  
running down his forehead as an even deeper fear sank in.

One desperate act had brought Jack to this point.  
So far he had survived, so far… but as he looked  
around, deep fear of his future life filled him.

The new arrivals were stripped, searched, and  
showered. Jack had been thru this ordeal before,  
when he was arrested and taken to the prison  
systems Diagnostic Unit. Even so, Jack still found the showers embarrassing.

Jack’s salt and pepper hair had been shaved at  
the Diagnostic Unit. It was a rule. There was no  
real reason behind it, it was something that had  
been done for decades. It was a practice, more or  
less. Yet, shaved head and all, Jack McCoy was  
pleasant to look at for a middle-aged guy. He was  
distinguished, he was white, his body was mostly  
smooth. He was tall, and even if he had never  
been an athlete, his body was muscular and well formed.

Jack’s face was not model pretty, never had been  
since he was a little kid, but it was good  
looking in a seasoned and roughed kind of way. It  
was the face of a man who didn’t belong in jail.  
It was the face of a man who never broke any law  
but one time and that time ruined the rest of his whole life.

His chest made him look boyish, with not one hair  
marring the surface of his pectorals. His rosy  
beige nipples were neither small nor large, about  
the size of a quarter with nubs that were  
slightly lighter in color. His belly was almost  
flat, just the hint of “age” handles marring it.  
He'd never had a real 6 pack to start with, but  
it was a belly most men his age would have killed  
for. Below his navel there were a few sparse  
chestnut hairs which trailed down to a somewhat  
thicker V-shaped tangle of curly dark hairs, with some gray mixed in.

Below that, Jack’s toys hung. Even on the coldest  
day, his limp appendage was about 4 inches of cut  
manhood. Fully erect it grew hard and stiff,  
almost doubling length and size. He had a tight,  
almost hairless scrotum that encased testicles  
that weren’t as small as he thought they  
were. He always thought it should have been  
bigger down there, and now he feared his  
deficiency would get him tagged as not man enough  
to skip the part of a prison wife.

Jack and the other new arrivals stepped out of  
the shower at a guard’s order. He dried off and  
stood in line for underwear and a uniform.

Jack dressed and walked in line thru a small maze  
of halls. The prisoners were led through a  
rotunda, an open 5 stories of marble and brass,  
roofed by a stained glass dome. He looked up,  
amazed, almost forgetting to move when the line moved on.

As he followed the line Jack felt cold and his  
fears deepened. He knew he was in a bad place,  
and he feared rape more than anything. His time  
in county jail and his time in the state’s  
Diagnostic Unit had been spent in single cells.  
But he had heard enough to know how bad the  
penitentiary was. He knew his age and lack of  
fighting skills made rape a very potential part of his future.

Like most men, young or old, big or small, Jack  
McCoy feared rape. He could almost imagine it,  
big, burly, younger men beating him, then making him do things with them.

Jack was so scared he thought everybody could smell it on him.

He was now told to sit on a bench. He needed to  
sit down, his legs felt weak. His heart was  
beating so loud it could almost be heard. As he  
wiped his sweaty wet palms on his orange uniform, he looked around.  
Jack wasn’t the only person in fear, most of the  
others sitting on the benches seemed nervous too.  
They were about to be classified, assigned a  
cell, assigned a work duty, classified by a  
person that really didn’t care what happened in  
the deep dark areas of the prison.

In prison, you can’t control anything. You can’t  
dial 911. Even if you’re raped and make the  
mistake of telling, your life is over. It’s not  
as easy as yelling for help or telling a guard.  
Telling is snitching, screaming is snitching, and  
prison society doesn’t have snitches. Bad things  
happen to snitches. Real bad things.  
It’s all supposed to be real organized. It’s all  
supposed to be fair. It’s only fair to the staff  
that actually plays a part in overseeing the  
prisons operations. The classification board  
consists of people with college educations who  
couldn’t get a better job. They have a few empty  
beds to stick new arrivals in. It doesn’t matter  
to them if they stick a hot check writer into an  
empty bed in a cell with a murderer. What matters  
to the classification board is 5pm and payday.  
They have a few empty beds, and they place the  
new arrivals in them. They don’t rearrange the  
entire overcrowded prison everyday. It’s a made  
up job that they perform. The board simply looks  
at what cells have empty bunks, and what new  
arrivals they have been made to deal with.

When it was Jack’s turn to walk into the  
classification room, his legs were shaking, his  
fear was obvious. His file wasn’t reviewed. There  
were a few empty cells in L Building and that was  
where Jack was being sent. Jack did luck out a  
little, it was time for the classification staff  
to take lunch, and they didn’t even bother to assign him to a job.

The entire 3 minutes that Jack spent in the  
classification room, he never even spoke. The  
staff never really looked at the scared  
middle-aged man who had shot the man who had  
turned his life into a living hell, but couldn’t  
prove his life was in immediate danger when he  
shot. The commission didn’t realize he had been  
sent to what was the state’s hardest penitentiary  
simply because it had empty beds. And even if  
they had realized, they wouldn’t have cared. And  
now, Jack McCoy was being placed in a cell simply because it had an empty bunk.

As the uniformed guard led Jack from the  
classification room, the board members were  
already trying to decide what they would have for  
lunch. Jack was just another prisoner to them, just another number.

 

Lennie paced back and forth in the small cell. He  
didn’t pace from nervousness, he didn’t pace from  
fear. Lennie Briscoe paced when he was in deep  
thought, like now. His tall frame couldn’t take  
many steps in the small cell, but he seemed to think better when he walked.

Different thoughts were running through Lennie’s  
mind. He’d been locked up for 5 years, 9 months  
and 3 days, most of them spent in the very prison  
cell he now was walking back and forth in. This  
morning his cell mate had been placed on the  
‘outgoing chain’. Lennie felt lonely, his best  
friend in this whole damn prison had left!

Lennie had no real reason to feel lonely, he was  
one of the lucky ones. He had a good amount of  
family and friends on the outside, in the free  
world, that wrote to him, visited him, and  
supported him. Lennie had visitors, he had mail,  
he had money in his prison trust fund, and even  
contraband cash available. He had the ability to  
obtain drugs, alcohol, and many other forms of  
prison contraband. In the eyes of many other  
prisoners, Lennie Briscoe had it all.

But he didn’t have it all. Not in his mind, not  
in his thoughts. Lennie was lonely, he had been  
lonely before but now that his best friend had  
left on the chain bus, his loneliness had  
increased. Lennie and his ex-cell mate hadn’t  
been lovers, but they were best friends. They had  
gotten along, they had developed prison routines,  
and they had been a stability to each other in the prison way of life.

And now, Lennie was alone. He didn’t have his  
best friend to bullshit with anymore. He didn’t  
have the buddy that he had lived with in the  
small cell for month after month. The tall, well  
built ex biker was feeling down. He felt almost abandoned.

Lennie knew he would get a new cellmate today. He  
was well aware of the prison overcrowding. But he  
was pacing, thinking, sorting out his thoughts,  
wondering if he wanted more than a friend, more than a buddy.  
In all his time in lock up, being away from  
women, only twice had Lennie ventured into the  
deep dark secret sex life of a straight man in  
prison. Only twice had the old man done what he  
thought was an unspeakable act. Two times now, he  
had paid for the privilege of a free world dick  
sucker. Only two times had he reduced himself to  
use a cock sucker, two times in over 5 years.

He had felt inner guilt from his sexual  
enjoyment. There was no doubt that he had  
received expert head, the best two blow jobs he  
had ever known in his almost sixty year long life span.

He could buy a prison punk, he could easily pay  
for a good cock sucker to be in his cell. He had  
the connections and funds to get one of the few  
punks that even had breast implants, the ones  
that everyone prisoner looked at. He could have the best.

He paced, thinking about it, thinking and pacing.  
He finally just made a decision as he looked at  
the empty bunk in his cell. He decided if they  
put some God awful freak in his cell, he’d pay a  
guard to have them moved. He didn’t know who he  
wanted in his cell. It wasn’t as easy as in the  
free world, but Lennie was lonely, he really  
wanted someone to talk with, to bullshit with.

Lennie stopped at the small sink in the back of  
the cell. He splashed some water on his face,  
then wet his grey hair and slicked it back with  
his long fingers. He looked at himself in the  
mirror and wished his face didn’t look so much like a road map.

He hopped up to his bunk to read his mail.

A while later, Lennie heard the yells, the prison  
cat calls, the hints of a new guy arriving in the  
cell block. The yells he was hearing were  
somewhat threatening, somewhat suggesting danger.  
He looked towards the bars, out to the cell block  
runway as the guard led the new guy to his cell.

Lennie’s face took on a frown as he watched the  
guard direct the new prisoner into his cell. He  
didn’t dislike the man on sight, on the contrary  
he was pleased to see someone his age. He wasn’t  
very fond of young people with their “fuck the world attitude.

What made him frown was the litany of rude  
remarks that the other prisoners were making  
about his new cellie. He looked at the frightened  
white collar type and felt a protective instinct develop.

A few of the convicts were peering into the cell.  
Jumping down, Lennie gave them a angry look, and  
closed the sheet that served as a makeshift  
privacy curtain for the steel bars.

A voice from outside yelled, ”Hey Briscoe, if you  
ain’t gonna share, at least let a nigga watch.”

Lennie ignored the comment and the laughter that  
accompanied it, turning towards the new guy.

“Don’t pay attention to that bull shit, you ride  
with me now, man. No one’s gonna fuck with you.”  
Lennie announced a bit louder than needed, but  
wanting his voice heard by those who lurked  
outside the cell. He held out a large hand, “I’m Lennie Briscoe.”

Jack was still in a daze, just walking to this  
cell had been another awful experience. He was  
too embarrassed to even meet Lennie's eyes. He  
murmured, “Jack, uh, Jack McCoy.” He shook hands,  
uncomfortable with the contact in the small space.

“Guess that ‘nice to meet you’ doesn’t work  
here.” Lennie chuckled. “I like the top bunk so  
the bottom is yours. Chow call is in about an  
hour, but it’s some kind of noodle shit tonight  
so you can eat a spread with me, if you want to.  
In fact, you’ll be better off if you stick with  
me at first, man. It’s rough in here, especially  
for new guys. You’re going to want to avoid a lot  
of these losers. They’ll try and catch you off by  
yourself, or in a stairwell, just all kinds of  
shit they watch for.” Lennie advised.

Jack made no comment. He didn’t know what to say.  
He had heard everything Lennie had said, but the  
phrase ‘ride with me’ is what he dwelled on. Jack  
took a few glances at his cell mate as he made  
his bunk. The guy had acted decent so far and he  
wasn’t hideous. And most importantly, he seemed  
to be treated as an alpha dog in this pack. The  
fear he had felt just walking down the cellblock  
run to this cell made Jack decide that he would  
do what he had to do to keep this man as a friend  
and protector. If he had to be a 'prison wife',  
he decided it would be better to willingly be  
with this one decent guy than to be gang raped by no telling how many.

As Jack made his decision, he visibly relaxed,  
although he was still nervous. "Thanks," he  
muttered as he turned toward his bunk. Lennie  
hopped back up to the top bunk and watched as  
Jack took the sheets and blanket that had been  
haphazardly tossed onto the bunk and turned it  
into a bed. When he finished, he sat down,  
obviously unsure of what came next. The silence felt awkward.

Lennie jumped down and sat on the end of Jack’s  
bed. “So how much time you got Jack?”

Jack made first eye contact with Lennie. There  
was something in Lennie’s eyes that seemed kind.  
“7 years, 3 for parole” he stuttered.

“Man, that isn’t so bad. If you keep your  
goodtime, you’ll be out before you know it. This  
fucking hell hole is real over crowded. They’re  
giving extra goodtime now, just handing it out  
like candy.” Lennie responded. “Hey, when they  
call chow, most of these broke mother fuckers  
will go to eat. That’s when you and me are gonna  
hit the showers. Otherwise a lot of these  
perverts will be trying to check you out, if you  
get my drift. Especially the ones that been  
locked up to long. Anytime new meat shows up  
around here, the old fuckers are all over ‘em.”

Jack croaked, “Uh, okay.” He didn’t bother to  
announce that he had just recently showered. He  
figured Lennie knew the chain routine. He figured  
Lennie just wanted to see his ass or something.  
That thought made him shiver, but he pushed it away.

For the next half hour or so, Lennie made small  
talk with him. Finally, a buzzer rang, and he  
heard a guard yell, “Get ready for chow! Chow in 5 minutes, chow in 5.”

Lennie stood up, and unzipped his orange prison  
jumpsuit. With no hesitation, no embarrassment,  
he stripped completely nude a few feet from where  
Jack sat. Jack stared at a small spot on the  
wall, feeling uncomfortable. Lennie wrapped a  
towel around his waist and then tossed another towel to Jack.

“Free world towels,” Lennie laughed. “Enough  
material to cover a guy up, not like the thin  
worn out crap they issue in here.”

Jack stood as Lennie sat back down. Jack knew his  
cell mate expected him to strip and put on the  
towel. His nervous fingers fumbled at the zipper.  
He kept his back towards Lennie as he stripped. And of course Lennie looked.

Lennie hadn’t really intended more then a glance,  
but as he saw Jack’s back and ass, the glance  
lingered. // A man his age shouldn’t have a butt  
that pretty.// The thought came unbidden into  
Lennie's mind. He had never so much as touched a  
guy's ass before, but he knew he wouldn’t mind  
touching a pretty butt like Jack’s. He felt that  
familiar twinge that his cock gave before it  
started getting stiff. Fortunately, Jack now had the towel wrapped around him.

The two cellmates headed towards the shower  
walking side by side down the run. The large  
shower with 40 shower heads was in the front end  
of the cell block. A half wall separated it from  
the cellblock run. Lennie shared soap and shampoo  
with Jack as they showered. He didn’t want to pop  
a boner in the shower, so other then passing the  
soap and shampoo, Lennie never looked at Jack.

It may have been fear of the unknown, it may have  
been normal curiosity. Jack did take a few looks  
at Lennie. His tall cellmate was thin but well  
built. And as Jack noticed, apparently Lennie was  
hung. Lennie’s cock was soft but to Jack it  
appeared quite large. It flopped and dangled as  
Lennie scrubbed. Two large balls swung freely in  
an equally impressive scrotum. The size of  
Lennie’s equipment made Jack even more nervous.  
He closed his eyes to shampoo the stubble of his  
cropped out hair but could still see the large dangling dick in his mind’s eye.

Jack didn't notice the stragglers who had not  
gone to chow that stood watching him shower. One  
of them, a large pot bellied man, openly groped  
as he watched the man shower. The big sharks had  
already claimed possession of all the fresh meat  
that came in with the last bus, and as usual  
they’d got the young punks and the sissies and  
the beta dogs. This one, maybe because he was  
older than most, or maybe because he skipped the  
first check, wasn’t claimed yet, so as long as  
old Briscoe didn’t change his habits and take a  
punk, it was open season for whoever was interested.

Lennie and Jack finished their shower. As Lennie  
dried off, he glared at the men who stared at  
Jack. The glare made two of the men walk away, but three remained.

“No need to look,” Lennie said in a dangerous tone, “He’s riding with me.”

Jack’s face flushed with embarrassment that  
worked its way all over his body. He was well  
aware of what happened sexually in prisons, he  
knew he was a chosen victim. But these men had  
stared with openness and a lewdness that shocked  
him. The way they had stared at him was like the  
way a group of construction workers would stare at a hot young woman.

On the trip back to the cell, Jack could still  
feel eyes burning holes into his back. He knew  
the men were staring at his once again towel  
covered butt. Even though the thick towel more  
than covered him, Jack felt as naked as he could  
get. He knew that all that stood between him and those men was his cell mate.

“Here,” Lennie said as they were back in the  
cell. “Free world boxers my aunt sent, they're  
too small for me but they should fit you.”

As Jack pulled up the boxers, he said, “Thanks  
Lennie. I mean thanks for out there too, those  
guys, the way they were staring... Man! I don’t  
know what I would have done without you, out there. Thanks!”

Lennie knew what Jack was trying to convey, if he  
hadn’t known, the sincerity of Jack’s voice would  
have told him. He felt a stab of guilt for checking out Jack’s ass earlier.

“They’re just fucking pervs,” Lennie said, “But  
I’m just as bad as them. I checked out your butt  
too, man. I’ve been locked up too long… I almost boned up seeing your ass!”

Jack looked at Lennie who still stood wrapped in  
a towel. He looked into the blue eyes of the  
older man who was his protection. Jack didn’t  
speak, he knelt down in front of Lennie.

Lennie’s hands were at his sides, clenched as  
Jack tugged the towel free. The cell was silent  
except for the beat of their hearts. For a few  
moments, Jack stared at the cock in front of his  
face. It had already been big, but it grew in  
front of his eyes, grew longer, and thicker,  
slightly darker as he stared at it.

A whisper came from Lennie, “You don’t have to do  
this.” Those were the words but it almost seemed  
a plea, Lennie almost seemed to beg for relief.

Jack’s tongue appeared, wet and thick. Jack felt  
almost calm as he licked Lennie’s stiff rod. The  
lick caused Lennie’s cock to spasm, to jerk.

Jack was surprised at the taste, it wasn’t that  
bad. Just the underlying taste of the soap from  
their shower. He opened his mouth wide, and  
covered the cock head. It had looked big, but  
felt huge now that it was inside his mouth. It  
was so thick that he couldn’t seem to open his  
mouth wide enough, but he tried. He was able to  
work a bit more of it into his mouth.

Lennie had tried to remain still, his fist opened  
and closed, cords stood out on his neck. His  
hands went to the stubble of Jack’s recently  
clipped off hair. He moaned quietly, and almost  
on their own, his hips began a slight thrust.

Jack had no experience with hard cocks except the  
one between his own legs. He knew enough to keep  
his teeth away from the sensitive steel hard  
organ. And actually, Jack was doing a very good job.

Lennie’s hips continued their thrust, Jack was  
taking as much as he could of the big cock.  
Jack’s tongue swirled, his jaws sucked, his lips  
formed a tight sleeve! Lennie’s hips slowly  
thrusted, pumping dick in and out of the warm sucking mouth.

“Uh… oh… fuck!” Lennie whispered hoarsely as his  
cock expanded and began to jet.

Cum flooded into Jack’s mouth, there was really  
no place for it to gave, save one, and without  
thinking, Jack began to swallow. He swallowed as  
fast as he could trying to keep up with the pipe  
like tube that flooded his mouth.

“Oh, fuck!” Lennie moaned loudly as his testicles  
quivered and sent their juice into Jack’s mouth. “Fuck!”

Whoops and hollers came from outside of the cell  
as Lennie’s fuck cries were heard.

 

In the back of Lennie’s mind, he was aware of the  
audience outside the sheet that hung over his  
cell’s bars. He didn’t think or dwell on those  
that had listened to him cumming. It was a prison  
thing, a convict thing, in some ways a man thing.  
Lennie had been there long enough to know the way  
of life. Men in here stuck their noses where they  
didn’t belong. It was an accepted way of doing time.

Jack also heard the laughs and catcalls from  
outside the cell. All those men out there knew he  
had just sucked a dick. They all knew he had just  
swallowed cum. His face was bright red, burning  
with shame. Sucking Lennie off hadn’t actually  
been that bad, but knowing that all those loud  
leering men knew, that was real shame. Jack was  
still kneeling on the cell’s cement floor. His  
heart was pounding and he stared at a point  
somewhere between Lennie’s long hairy legs.

Lennie’s heart was also pounding, it was racing.  
He was speechless, and was trying to sort his  
thoughts and feelings. He had just had his dick  
sucked by another man for the third time in his  
life. He had enjoyed it even though it wasn’t one  
of the best head jobs the world had known. Lennie  
had liked it, he liked it very much. There was no  
guilt about the homosexual activity this time.  
Lennie enjoyed that even more than he enjoyed the  
fact that he had just had an orgasm.

The old jailbird stared down at Jack. This wasn’t  
one of the pretty punks that had sucked his cock  
previously. They had worn make-up, they had tried to appear female.

Lennie looked down at where Jack still knelt. He  
saw a decently built man with a bad prison  
version of a crew cut. There wasn’t anything  
feminine about Jack. Lennie saw a man almost his  
own age trying to survive in a version of hell.  
Lennie almost shrugged, maybe Jack would be cuter when his hair grew some.

Then Lennie did a strange thing. He reached down  
with one of his long arms and pulled Jack up. He  
was strong, he exerted no effort to pull the man  
off the floor. A stupid thought ran thru Lennie’s  
mind, just a brief and never known thought. For a  
split second, Lennie was thinking about kissing  
this man who had just sucked his dick. It was  
just one of those fleeting deep feelings that one sometimes has after sex.

He pushed the thought away, but he did give Jack  
a half way embrace, and Lennie did whisper “Thanks, I really needed that.”

Lennie patted Jack’s back, a straight man’s  
brotherly hug, a hug used on special occasions.  
He stepped back, and asked, “You know how to make a spread?”

Thoughts were running through Jack’s head too. He  
had just sucked a dick. He was confused by the  
hug, but somehow he knew it was an effort at  
friendship, a bonding. He had just sucked this  
guy's dick and swallowed his cum. He had been  
half hugged and received a whispered ‘thanks’ for his effort.

Jack took a short but hard look at Lennie. He saw  
a tall, well built old man. He saw strength and  
protection. Jack didn’t see a real good looking  
guy, not like a model or actor. But Jack saw  
someone who could hopefully save him from the  
hell that was still making comments outside of the cell.

“A spread? You know how to make one?” Lennie  
repeated. He saw the confused expression on Jack’s face.

Jack had been lost in his thoughts, but this time  
Lennie's voice got through. At least the words  
did, but they didn't make much sense. Jack’s  
thoughts were still in a sexual mode. He was  
trying to picture a sexual position that two  
males could have that involved spreading. He  
looked up at tall Lennie but just couldn’t  
picture what he was supposed to do. He asked,  
“You want me to spread my legs or something? I  
ain’t done this kind of thing before.”

Lennie held back the laughter he had inside, but  
his eyes sparkled. Had he gotten the perfect  
cellmate? He didn’t know, but for the first time in years, Lennie was happy!

He answered, “Legs? Spread? Hey, maybe later, but  
I was talking about food, making a spread. You  
start with tuna fish or deviled ham or any kind  
of meat in a tin and mix stuff in. Sandwich spread."

"Oh!" Jack felt like an idiot for assuming it  
was something sexual. His face turned beet red and he shrugged.

Lennie finally let out that laugh, and after a moment, Jack laughed with him.

"Come on, I'll show you my Tuna Spread Deluxe."

Somehow, it was natural for both the men that  
Jack took on the role of preparing the supper  
while Lennie supervised, giving out the recipe  
which included among other things a bag of  
crushed potato chips. Lennie had a good stash of  
food. He had the things that the prison  
commissary sold and he had supplements that he  
purchased from inmates who worked in the prison kitchens.

But Lennie’s thoughts were elsewhere. // He isn’t  
ugly, he’ll probably look kind of cute when his  
hair grows back. He’s got a nice ass for a guy.  
But could I fuck a guy? Another guy? //

Something clicked in Lennie’s mind, some thought,  
some need. As Jack handed Lennie a sandwich,  
Lennie took a big bite, “Damn, pretty good, man!”

Jack gave what some might consider a half smile,  
and took a doubtful bite from his own sandwich.  
He frowned, “It is good! I thought it was going  
to taste like shit when you had me add the chips!”

Lennie wanted to dig deeper, and he usually  
pretty much did what he wanted. “So you never  
made a spread before?” Lennie's leer made it  
clear he wasn't talking about the sandwiches.

The blush reappeared on Jack’s face as he picked  
up on what Lennie was asking. He chose to answer  
the other version of the question first. “Been a  
long time since I had to eat tuna salad." But  
then he looked up into his protector's eyes and  
answered the real one. "This is kind of my first  
time. I really appreciate you looking after me.”

Normally, Lennie came right to the point. But not  
this time, he took another look at Jack and knew  
there would never be any chance that this  
masculine middle aged man would become feminine.  
But Lennie responded, “Yeah, it's pretty scary in  
here. It’s fucking lonely as hell too!”

Jack didn’t know how to respond at first, but he  
knew there were a lot of men waiting outside the  
cell. Men who might not be so nice, men who  
wouldn’t be sharing their food with him.

Finally he spoke. “I’m scared shitless, man. I  
don’t even know how to tell you how scared I am!”

Lennie’s blue eyes were still smiling, almost a  
sparkle seemed to come from them. He let out a  
deep breath, not a sigh, but almost a hope.

“Look, Jack. I can teach you, kind of take care  
of you. I’m not normally gay, but I’m so fucking  
lonely that I kind of want to hook up.”

Jack was puzzled again, but just for a few  
seconds. He figured out what the term ‘hook up’ meant in prison.  
“I wouldn’t mind taking care of someone if they  
take care of me,” Lennie was speaking again. “No  
one in here will fuck with what’s mine or nothing  
cause I got a few contacts.” For some reason  
Lennie felt the need to brag about his abilities in the prison.

“You want me to be your punk?” Jack asked in a  
muted voice. Jack was staring at Lennie.

“Don’t look at me like that!” Lennie answered. “I didn’t rape you or anything!”

Jack shook his head, “Naw, I, uh, I sucked your  
dick cause I wanted to thank you for making those  
perverts leave me alone. I never sucked a dick  
before. I’m not gay, but I’ll do what I need to.  
I’ll do what you say. Am I going to have to act like a girl?”

Lennie couldn't hold back his laughter any more.  
He looked at his new cellmate and laughed hard.  
He laughed from his heart, but managed to speak,  
“No one will ever mistake you for a girl, Jack.  
No, you don’t have to act like a girl, you don’t  
have to act like anything. But maybe later, can I  
see what you thought a spread was?”

Good natured Jack didn’t take the laughter as an  
insult, in all actuality he couldn’t really do  
anything that would offend Lennie. But Jack  
decided if he had to be with a man, this new cellmate wasn’t bad at all.

The two sat beside each other eating sandwiches  
and talking. The few that had been hoping to get  
a piece of Jack and waiting on the chance that  
Lennie would put him on the stroll had  
disappeared, they had gone on to their normal way of prison life.

They spent the rest of the day talking, getting  
to know each other. Just before lights out, a  
guard walked down the cellblock walkway, peering into cells, counting heads.

The young guard had seen it all. When he counted  
Jack and Lennie he saw two almost naked convicts  
kissing. He didn’t care, he had been trained to  
ignore sexual activity between inmates. He had  
been told it kept the inmates happy and kept them  
from causing trouble and rioting. It wasn't anything special.

Except that prison sex rarely included  
kissing. But then the guard wouldn't know that.

For Jack and Lennie, it most certainly was  
something special. It was the first time either  
of them had kissed another man. Lennie was the  
dominant kisser, his tongue was doing the  
probing, his hands were working lower and lower  
on Jack’s back. He had made a major decision -  
if he could get his dick sucked by another guy,  
then he might as well try a few more things. It  
was really more than that, it was more than just sexual relief.

Lennie was tired of being lonely.

He didn't really notice much difference between  
kissing Jack and kissing a woman. He covered  
Jack’s lips and tongued deep inside the man’s  
mouth. His dick grew to full size, hardened and  
wanted to be freed from the boxers that constricted it.

Jack’s eyes remained open during the long  
involved French kiss. His lips moved and gave  
into Lennie’s controlling kiss. He tasted the  
large tongue that probed his mouth. It wasn’t that bad, not bad at all.  
Deep in his thoughts, Jack had known he would be  
punked. He hadn’t spent much time thinking about  
what might happen, fearing the worst. But never  
in a million years would he have imagined kissing  
being part of it. Much to his surprise, it  
wasn’t that bad. Even as Lennie’s hands roamed  
his back, moving lower and lower, Jack just  
accepted the kiss and the groping. In fact, Jack  
developed his own erection at some point.

Lennie’s hands had slipped inside the boxers he  
had given Jack. He had never been much of an ass  
man with the women in his life but this wasn’t a  
woman’s ass he was feeling up. He knew that the  
smooth globes of muscled buttocks he was feeling  
were male. But it didn’t matter at this point, he  
was too horny, too excited. Maybe another blow  
job would have satisfied him, but he wanted, almost needed to fuck.  
Somehow they were both standing, removing their  
shorts. Lennie bent his head down, continuing the  
kiss that only fuelled the fire that burnt between his legs.  
Jack was now face down on the bottom bunk. He  
wasn’t sure how he had got there, but he spread  
apart his legs. He knew what was next. He  
remained still and watched as Lennie produced a  
bottle of hand lotion. Neither one of them knew  
the in’s and out’s of butt fucking, but Lennie knew that lube was needed.

Lennie applied a generous amount to his big cock,  
the shine of the lotion somehow made its size  
more impressive. He sat down beside Jack and  
spread Jack’s ass cheeks apart. Both of their  
hearts pounded, as Lennie took in the small orifice that he intended make his.

The virgin hole appeared so small, so tiny. If  
Lennie hadn’t known better, he wouldn’t have  
believed his cock could fit inside that small  
band of muscle. He ran his finger around Jack’s  
ass rim, then applied a generous amount of the  
cool lotion. The current sexual activity was a  
brand new experience for both men. Even as Lennie  
coated the small orifice, he still wondered how  
that tiny hole could open wide enough to receive  
a hard cock. He knew it happened, all the time,  
somewhere right now, several men in this very cell block were fucking.

Jack still had his erection. It laid between his  
stomach and the rough prison sheets of the bunk.  
No one had touched his asshole before, not even  
during the many strip searches he had endured.  
But, the lotion was cool, almost relaxing as his  
new cellmate's finger rubbed it in.

Jack was scared, any straight man would have been  
afraid. He knew he was going to be fucked, he  
somehow knew it would hurt. Maybe it was word of  
mouth, maybe it was a long forgotten instinct,  
Jack knew that his big cocked cellmate would  
cause him a lot of pain. He had sucked off that  
dick, it was huge, he had trouble taking a small  
part of it in his wide open mouth. Oh, yeah, he  
knew it would hurt going up his ass.  
Instinct told Jack to push out, to open his ass as wide as he could.

Lennie was still watching the small ring as it  
seemed to wink and pulse! He stared at it amazed  
as it managed to expand and create a very small  
opening that he sank his finger into. He didn’t  
know what to expect as his lotion covered finger  
entered the virgin ass. He surely didn’t expect  
what he felt. Warmth and a smooth tightness  
encased his finger. Just having his finger in  
that ass channel made Lennie moan.  
He moved his finger around a little.

Lennie felt a bit strange fingering another guy's  
asshole, but it didn’t matter anymore. He had  
completely crossed that line that separates  
straight men from gay ones when he kissed Jack.  
Even in prison there were certain rules. You were  
thought of as straight when you fucked a punk or  
got head. But kissing, even the oldest convicts  
that had seen or done it all considered that a  
queer act. Lennie knew those rules, but he didn’t  
care. He wanted sex, good sex. He wanted to fuck,  
too much time had passed since he had fucked.  
Pure male need, the masculine instinctive need to  
fuck had Lennie climbing on Jack’s back. But  
another need, another masculine need to protect  
made Lennie think about his movements.

Lennie slowly lowered his body onto Jack’s back.  
Just the skin to skin contact felt good. Jack  
felt warm and comfortable underneath his larger  
body. He could feel the beating of Jack’s heart  
where his chest touched Jack’s back. His cock  
rested into the smoothness of the pliant butt.  
Lennie let out a contented sigh, the sound of a happy man.

He was aware of Jack’s fear, the thumping heart  
gave that emotion away. Lennie bent his head  
close to Jack’s left ear, whispering, “It’ll be  
okay, don’t be scared. I’ll go real easy, you let  
me know if it’s hurting too much. You let me  
know, okay?” Lennie purposely didn’t use the  
words ‘man’ or ‘punk'. Those words were  
appropriate to use with a punk who was going to  
be ass fucked but didn’t fit with this intimate position.

Lennie felt compelled to do more than fuck, he  
began a form of foreplay that he hoped would make  
this better for the both of them. He ran his  
tongue around Jack’s ear lobe, nibbling and  
nuzzling. He darted his tongue in and out of the  
other man’s ear using a firm almost fucking  
motion to french his new cellmate’s ear.  
He gently ran the rough stubble of his slight  
beard shadow over the back of Jack’s neck, then  
his mouth went into action again. He sucked and  
kissed at the tender skin of the man’s neck.

The foreplay was doing its job. Jack was getting  
horny, his dick leaked and throbbed where it lay  
beneath his stomach. It was all so new to him. He  
had never known that his ear was an erotic area.  
He had never experienced a person lying on his  
back, the weight that seemed to cause sexual stimulation.

As the kisses to his sensitive neck continued,  
Jack let out soft moans, he slowly thrust his  
dick against the rough sheets. He felt hornier  
and hotter then he had ever been. He could feel  
the heat radiating from the big hard log pressed  
against his butt, he felt the slickness of the lubed cock touching his ass.  
Jack pushed the fear of being fucked to the back  
of his mind. His hormones were making their need  
for more sexual contact known.

“I’m so hot, you got me so hot!” Jack's voice  
even surprised himself. It was the low tone of  
someone who recognized he was involved in a ‘forbidden’ act.

Lennie asked, “Can I fuck you? Can I fuck you,  
baby?” His voice was gentle and soft but the need  
in it was heard. Lennie heard himself calling  
Jack ‘baby’. It made him cringe but it seemed to  
fit. “Please baby, can I fuck you?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jack whispered. “Do it.”

Lennie rose up, he looked down to where his  
hardness still touched the hot sweet ass cheeks.  
He supported his body above Jack’s with one hand  
as he guided his dick into the cleavage of the  
butt cheeks. Almost on its own, Lennie’s cock  
head found the warm moistness of the ass ring. He  
bent his mouth back to Jack’s neck and pushed gently.

Jack tensed as soon as he felt the thick cock  
head press against his asshole. A deep fear and  
an even deeper dread filled every nook and cranny  
of his mind. He knew he had to do this, he had to  
be a part of this. He’d rather be involved with  
this one guy than no telling how many others.

Jack couldn’t relax but once again he was able to  
push out with his ass ring. He pushed out hard,  
so hard that he grunted. And his ass had opened  
enough, Lennie’s cock began a slow entrance.

The two had spent some time in their version of  
foreplay. A lot of the cheap commissary lotion  
that Lennie had used as lube had dried up. Not  
much remained on the old man’s fuck tool. Jack  
had only received one of Lennie’s fingers. The  
cock that was being forced inside him was so much thicker. Much too thick.  
Jack’s pain was waves of pure agony. He wanted to  
make it stop. He wanted to crawl away from the  
huge thing that seemed to be splitting his ass apart.

Jack was feeling pain like he'd never known in  
all his life, but he took it like a man. He  
didn’t scream in pain, he didn’t resist. He  
didn’t cry and beg for it to stop. He hid the pain and he rode on its waves.

Lennie sank in slowly, slow as he could! He had  
expected that Jack’s ass would feel good, he had  
expected it to feel as good as the real pussies  
he had often been inside of in the free world. He  
didn’t expect what he was feeling.

If Lennie had penetrated any faster, he would  
have immediately lost it and come. His cock was  
entering something that was so tight it felt like  
strong hands clamping around his dick! But it was  
so much better than his hands. It was a small  
tight chute with a hard ring of muscle that  
locked around his dick. It was warm, so tight, so  
soft. It seemed to be slowly sucking his dick into its depth

Lennie did what he could, he tried to watch for  
signals of pain or stress from Jack. He tried to  
be careful and not hurt the owner of this  
wonderful hole. He tried to be aware of Jack and  
what Jack was feeling, but his dick was sending  
out signals that overwhelmed his thoughts.

Jack remained still and quiet, the pain grew and  
grew, but Jack hid it. He didn’t give in to the  
need to get the huge thing out of his body.

Minutes had gone by, many minutes that left both  
men’s bodies gleaming with a light sheen of  
sweat. In the low glow of the 60 watt bulb in the  
prison cell, they both appeared almost handsome.  
Their bodies looked strong and sturdy and desirable.

And the fucking began. Lennie had finally entered  
balls deep. He pulled out slowly, being careful,  
but enjoying the hot sensations of the clinging  
ass tunnel more then he could ever remember  
enjoying anything. He pulled out until he felt  
the flare of his cock head touching the inner  
ring of ass muscle, then he slowly pushed back in.

Jack didn’t make a sound, he didn’t scream as it  
felt like his guts were being pulled out of his  
ass. He didn’t move as it felt like a baseball  
bat was being forced in and out. He had made a  
choice, he had made his own choice. That choice  
involved letting this man fuck him. Jack wasn’t  
big enough to protect himself, but he was man enough to hide his agony.  
After a while, his body adapted to the  
intrusion. Tight muscles had been stretched. The  
massive prick moved in and out more freely, the  
pain was fading. He could feel the size of the  
dick moving thru his body but either he had  
gotten used to the pain or it wasn’t hurting as  
bad. Jack became aware of other things, other  
things beside the pure agony he had been  
suffering. He was aware of Lennie kissing and  
nibbling at his neck. Jack admitted to himself  
that he liked the neck foreplay even though it was from another man.  
Lennie’s cock had produced fuck lube, and it  
moved thru Jack’s love tunnel freely.

Lennie was doing some of his own fighting of  
feelings. His balls wanted to explode. His dick  
wanted to be buried forever in this hot hole.

If someone could have seen Lennie fucking, he  
would have seen a tall sinewy body in a fluid  
motion; a man who was tough and rough, but also a caring lover.

Lennie twisted his head, moved around as he  
continued fucking, his lips once again found  
Jack’s. He kissed slightly and then whispered, “Can I cum inside you, baby?”

Jack hadn’t really thought that far. He had  
already swallowed Lennie’s cum, so what difference did it make?

“Yeah!” Jack whispered.

Their mouths touched, in the strange position of  
chest against back, top stud riding the bottom  
stud’s back, the two men had no problems flexing and kissing.

Friction and sex took over. Jack breathed faster,  
he wanted the dick to fuck harder.

Lennie continued his long but slow strokes inside  
the hot tunnel. He controlled his dick as long as  
it was humanly possible, but they had been fucking for a very long time.

Lennie finally gave into his fuck need. He broke  
his kiss and moved his mouth back to Jack’s neck.  
He bit and sucked. He was slamming ass now,  
pumping cock in and out, grinding the hot  
chute. The old inmate cried out softly as his  
ejaculation began. The words didn’t make much  
sense but they were the soft words of a man who was climaxing.

Lennie drained his load, he was spent and done.  
He kissed gently at Jack’s neck as he felt his  
dick shrinking some. He kissed and licked his  
cellmate’s neck allowing his member to reduce to  
a semi hard on. He pulled out carefully, aware  
that Jack would probably be very tender.

Standing up, Lennie looked down at his half  
deflated dick. It looked pretty clean to him but  
he moved to the sink to wash it. He cleaned it,  
turning his back toward Jack. As he was drying  
his cock, he turned and looked at his lover.

The towel dropped from Lennie’s hands.

“Are you okay, baby?” Lennie’s voice was louder  
than needed. Jack hadn’t moved. His eyes were glassy looking.

“Oh man! Oh fuck man! I didn’t mean to hurt you!”  
Lennie cried out. “I swear, dude! Oh, fuck, I’m  
sorry! You want me to get a doctor or something?”

Jack blinked, “Huh?”

Lennie sat down on the bunk, “You okay? Come on  
man, get up! I didn’t mean to get that  
rough… Can you stand up? I can get the guard to  
call the infirmary. I’m fucking sorry.”

“No, no. I just need to rest here. I’m okay.”  
Jack’s voice sounded far away, he sounded weak.

“No man. We gotta get you looked at.” Lennie  
touched Jack’s cheek. “I didn’t mean to fuck like that, I lost control.”

Jack sighed, “I lost control too. I’m okay. But  
yeah, help me up. I need to sit on the toilet.”

Lennie almost picked the man off the bunk. “I  
like you, you know I didn’t mean to hurt you.”  
As Lennie lifted Jack up, sticky strands of cum  
ran from Jack’s soft drawn up dick to the bed sheet.  
Jack seemed to be gasping for air, for his very breath.

“You didn’t hurt me, you made me cum.” Jack said in wonderment.

Now it was Lennie's turn to say “Huh?” He stared  
at the tell tale stain, he knew what it was, he  
had spent enough of his own juice on sheets to  
know what the thick creamy mass of fluid  
was. But … ? Lennie had heard that sometimes  
punks cum from getting ass fucked, but those were  
free world punks, queens that spent most of their days getting screwed.

Jack sat on the cell’s toilet. His asshole felt  
sore, it felt swollen, but he knew he was okay.  
Just to be on the safe side, he took some of the  
rough cheap prison toilet paper and gently wiped  
the swollen ring of his sphincter. He looked at  
the paper, there was no sign of blood.

Lennie had continued staring at the sticky mess  
on the sheet with almost a sense of awe. Suddenly  
he stuck his thin but well built chest out a bit.  
He was filled with some prison form of male pride.

Lennie had been a good lover to many women on the  
outside. He was considered attractive by quite a  
few women, and the fact that he had money had  
never hurt Lennie’s ability in the free world. He  
had prided himself on making his women achieve  
climax. And that same pride was filling him again.

He looked at the cum stain proudly and began to  
pull the soiled sheet from the bunk. He grinned  
at Jack, as if to say: Damn I’m fucking good.

Jack felt embarrassment, a bad burning feeling  
that seemed to start in his stomach and spread  
everywhere. How had he got off? What had caused  
him to cum? It had hurt so bad then it didn’t  
hurt. Had he rubbed himself off? Had he rubbed  
his dick against the sheet and got off? Maybe,  
maybe that was it. He managed to get a few more drops of cum out of his ass.

Then Jack felt something he had never felt  
before. It was the kind of feeling a man has when  
he has been fucked and liked it. It was the  
feeling of an empty ass that had so recently been  
filled. It was an emotion that overpowered everything else in Jack’s mind.

“I liked it!” Jack spoke out loud. “I was just  
doing it to survive in here. But I liked it. It  
really hurt. I wanted to make you get it out of  
me.” Jack had dropped into a sound of confusion.

Lennie forgot all about the stained sheet. “I  
didn’t want to hurt you. I tried to be careful.  
You should have told me or something. You’re going to be okay?”

“Yeah,” Jack answered. “No! Something’s changed.  
Cause I liked it. Something’s changed.”

Lennie was putting a real sheet on Jack’s bunk, a  
sheet from the streets. “I liked it too. No, I  
fucking loved it! I can’t tell you how I’m  
feeling! I don’t want to make it worse for you. I  
don’t want to make you feel down or anything.  
Maybe it’s because I’ve been locked up all these  
years, maybe its because I’ve been feeling down.  
But what we just did seemed the best I ever had!  
Shit! If you were a chick and we were on the  
outside, I’d be buying you a fucking ring. I fucking loved it.”

“So we both ended up liking it, huh?”

Lennie didn’t know what to say. He had just made  
Jack’s bunk. Lennie had never made his  
ex-cellmates bunk. He didn’t like making his own.  
But yet he felt some confidence, and some  
affection that made him answer honestly. “I will  
never force you. I’m gonna leave it up to you.  
But of you wanna be with me, I will do everything  
I can to keep you safe. I will take care of you.  
I gotta level with you, all these losers around  
here will know we are hooked up if you choose  
that. But if you’re with me and listen to me,  
none of them will be stupid enough to try  
anything. I want to do this again. If we hook up, I expect to do it again.”

Jack looked at Lennie. He looked at the first man  
he had ever had sex with. He had willingly sucked  
Lennie’s dick, that wasn’t so bad. He had let  
Lennie kiss him, that was surprising, He had  
spread his legs and let Lennie fuck him

Jack grimaced, “You kind of know I liked getting  
fucked, but how do I get your cum out of my ass?”  
“Oh fuck! Is that why you sitting there.  
Fuck! God! I didn’t think about how you would  
get it out!” Lennie was now the most confused one.

But for some reason as the two new cellmates  
looked at one another they both began to laugh.  
Shortly after, Lennie left the cell and returned  
with a bottle. It was a plastic bottle that had  
once contained 16 ounces of a cheap prison  
commissary shampoo. The mouth had been filed down  
smooth. It had been modified and its new purpose  
was to contain warm water to douche an asshole  
with. Lennie had given a pack of cigarettes for  
the bottle and the verbal instructions on it use.  
As he handed it to Jack and watched the man use  
it, he began to feel that rise, that feeling that his dick needed attention.

Jack actually liked the feel of pushing the small  
mouth of the shampoo bottle into his still puffy  
ass lips. He squeezed the water inside his ass. It felt good to him.

Lennie took the now empty bottle from Jack and refilled it.

Somehow, as Jack learned how to take care of his  
newly deflowered ass, he also began hardening. As  
he filled his now empty ass with water, his dick  
stiffened and got as hard as it could get.

Lennie kept watching Jack while he was taking  
care of the goods. He had liked Jack from the get  
go, but the feelings were growing. And Lennie’s  
dick was also growing. Another kiss began.

The kissed deepened into the need for more sex  
between the two cellmates. Both of them were  
hard, both of them needed to go at it again.

Jack broke away and moved to his bunk. He lay  
down on his belly and spread his legs wide. His  
muscular ass was an open invitation.

Lennie moved over Jack and licked at his neck,  
then he flipped Jack over until they were face  
to face. He began with a kiss to Jack’s mouth, then moved to Jack’s neck.

Jack moaned as he neck was nibbled and kissed.  
His legs were somehow on Lennie’s broad shoulders.  
The big thick cock was at his ass again.

“Do it… Please!” Jack demanded.

Lennie had asked a lot of questions of the queen  
who sold him the bottle. He hadn't expected to  
use the info so soon, but he knew already it was  
worth the packs of cigarettes he gave in  
exchange. He shoved about 3 inches of his cock  
inside of Jack’s hole. Then he bent his mouth  
down to Jack’s left nipple and clamp down. He bit  
into the other man’s nipple as sucked at it. Then  
he thrust the remaining length of his dick as deep as possible.

The two men gave in to a real, mind wrecking  
fuck. Neither one of them wanted to be gay, and  
neither one of them could end the pleasure!  
Lennie pounded hard, and Jack moved back and forth.

Two men who met quite by accident were both  
having the best sex of their lives.

Lennie kissed, bit and sucked Jack’s nipples. At  
some point he realized he wasn’t fucking anymore,  
he was making love to his partner and it was a wonderful feeling.

Jack responded. He wanted to keep the big cock  
deep inside him. He kissed back, sucking at the  
fat tongue. The strong white teeth that bit at  
his nipples off and on almost made him feel like  
he was going to die from pleasure.

It was almost perfect. Jack came first, giving  
in to the fuck. He shot all over Lennie’s tight  
belly, and even on Lennie’s chest.

As Lennie saw his new lover cum, he stopped  
holding back and came powerfully. He came not  
feeling the guilt of the straight man enjoying  
gay sex anymore. He came with a need.

As his dick softened, he kissed Jack with the  
small pecks of a happy man, whispering, “You’re mine, you’re mine!”

Jack voice was weak but had a meaning in its  
tone! “No, you’re mine! You belong to me!”

They kissed again, basking in the afterglow of  
pure sexual contentment, happy to have found each other.

 

Lennie smiled as he felt the sliding door of the  
shower being open and closed again and a couple of arms encircling in midriff.

“Someone woke up horny?” He asked good naturedly,  
receiving just a grunt in answer as the arms  
encircling him moved down to find the treasure.

He turned and wrapped his arms around Jack, moving to kiss him passionately.

“Should I call in sick today?” he demanded.

“Yes you have to…” Jack whispered in his ear, his  
tone so low and sexy to make his blood start boiling.

“So who were we, this time?” Lennie asked. After  
years spent living with Jack he sort of  
recognized the ‘symptoms’. Jack was passionate  
by nature, but he got so horny and over the top  
usually after one of his dreams. Lennie never  
complained about it since it was those dreams  
that brought them together in the first  
place. And besides, they would fuck each other  
silly for hours, if not for days, when a new dream visited Jack.

“I was sent to prison and you were my cell mate…”  
Jack sort of managed to say alternating words  
with kisses and bites, descending slowly from the neck to the left nipple.

“You shouldn’t watch OZ before going to bed… All  
those naked men aren’t good for the health of a  
old man” Lennie joked, backing off to sustain  
himself against the wall and giving in to Jack’s  
assault. “and there’s that bastard that looks  
like Emil who’s a real turn off…”

Jack grunted again and moved to the right nipple,  
sinking his teeth in the flash and chewing  
slightly, in the way he knew drove Lennie crazy.

“But if this is the result, I think I’m gonna rent the box set more often.”

Jack slid down Lennie’s body, keeping on kissing  
and biting, playing with his navel, chewing  
playfully on the hairy trail there to the groin.

“I’m gonna rent the whole collection…” Lennie  
added hoarsely. Jack took Lennie in his mouth and  
started to work his cock in a frenzy.

“I’m gonna buy it … every single season of it…  
and keep it in every room of the house...”

Jack bit. Not hard, but enough to confirm that  
vanilla was not an option today. Lennie got the  
message loud and clear. He reached for Jack and  
brought him back to his feet. He smiled at the  
glassy, dreaming look of Jack’s eyes. Sometimes  
it was frightening, the passion that Jack was capable of.

“SO… you want it rough, punk?” he said trying to  
figure out how to play the butch cellmate. “You  
want Big Old Lennie to take you to his cell and  
fuck you silly again and again and again?  
”  
“Yes…” whispered Jack. “yes…”

“Are you sure you can take it… You know Big Old  
Lennie is a mean rider when it comes to breaking in a new punk…”

“Try me…”

“With pleasure…”

They left the bathroom without caring about  
drying off and headed toward the bedroom, Jack leading Lennie by his nuts.  
Oh yes, thought Lennie, pushing Jack over the bed  
and taking control, this was going to be one of  
those days they would remember for a very long time.


End file.
